A Blade of Grass

by Lewis Desoto

  “We are alone,” Märit says, just to hear the sound of her own voice, suddenly fearful that the silence will swallow her as well.

  Tembi catches an edge of fragility in Märit’s voice. She knows that she is stronger than Märit, and this knowledge places a burden of responsibility upon her shoulders and upon her heart. Tembi knows that if ever that fragility is broken, Märit will be lost.

  “We will manage,” she says.

  “How?” Märit says, turning to look at Tembi with panic in her eyes. “How?”

  “By making the farm smaller. We will only give water to the strong and healthy vegetable plants, and we will only tend a few rows of maize. There is fruit in the orchard. And there are chickens for meat and eggs.” She has noticed the fowls pecking through the underbrush behind the huts. “At least they didn’t take the chickens.”

  “There will be a lot of work for just the two of us.”

  “We can work! This will be a farm for two women. Aren’t we strong? Like lions!” She curls her hands into imaginary claws. “Watch out all who come here. This is the farm of the lion women. Grr!” Her hands rake the air. “Grr!”

  They continue their inspection of the farm.

  Outside the milking hut Tembi says, “The cattle are gone. All the cows. No milk or butter.”

  “We don’t need it. We will drink water.”

  They walk over to the shed where the generator is housed. Märit opens the door and regards the machine, smelling the oil and diesel fuel. Ben had installed a new generator when they bought the farm, as well as batteries that are charged by the turning of the windmill vanes so that the fuel consumption will be less. The electricity for the lights and the refrigerator in the house are powered from this generator. She has no idea how any of it works. What will happen if it fails? With a shake of her head she shuts the door again. At least there is paraffin for lamps in the house, as well as candles. And there is plenty of firewood. They will manage.

  Later that afternoon Märit makes an inventory—of the food in the house, of the money left in the cash box. She takes down the box of shells for the shotgun and counts them too. She makes a silent calculation, counting the days for which there is enough food, as if laying in for a siege.

  When the heat of the afternoon is heavy on the house, Tembi and Märit walk down to the orchard and sit under the peach trees. Märit lies on her back, gazing up through the leaves. Far above the trees is the occasional glint of light on metal and the faint rumbling of aircraft. But it is distant.

  She wonders about the other farms in the district. Have their workers left also? Are the men and women who remain also counting the days?

  DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS the two women begin to reshape the new boundaries of the farm. Much will be neglected, out of necessity, but there is also much they can do. Together with Tembi, Märit spends the mornings digging with a hoe between the rows of vegetables to remove the weeds that never cease to grow. They block off some of the irrigation channels that will now stream to unused beds and divert the water to where it will do the most good.

  “We must make sure the chickens stay in their pen now,” Tembi tells Märit as they examine a gap in the mesh fence. “Without the children to look after them, they will wander off and maybe get eaten by animals. And we won’t find the eggs if the hens lay all over the place.”

  With a roll of wire mesh found in one of the sheds they repair the chicken coop. The rooster, Dik-Dik, watches from his perch on a nearby branch, emitting a threatening cluck every time Märit ventures near him.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” Märit says.

  “He’s a man. He doesn’t like to see women doing things without his permission.”

  The chickens are herded into the pen, which is a small hut surrounded by a patch of ground, enclosed in the wire-mesh fence. Märit shoos the last hen in. The rooster is still on his perch.

  “What about him?” she says.

  Tembi takes up an old broom and advances on the rooster. “Come on, Dik-Dik, join your women.” The rooster spreads his wings and darts his beak at the broom that Tembi waves at him. With a deft movement Tembi dislodges the rooster from his perch. “Hold the gate open,” she calls to Märit, as Dik-Dik flaps his wings at her.

  For a minute there is a contest of wills, but the broom wins, and Dik-Dik is urged into the coop. He flutters up to the roof of the shed and crows mightily at the two women.

  “All right, all right,” Tembi says. “We know you are the king.”

  When it is time to collect the eggs, Dik-Dik accepts Tembi’s presence in his domain, but if Märit enters, he swoops down from his perch and challenges her, crowing, flapping his wings, trying to peck at her calves. So Märit lets Tembi collect the eggs in the mornings while she stands at the gate, making sure that none of the hens wander out.

  ONE EVENING AT DINNER, which is potatoes and beef stew, Tembi says, “That was the last of the meat.”

  “Is there nothing left in the freezer?” There has always been meat in the freezer. Ben had made sure of that.

  “This was the last. We will have to slaughter one of the hens from the coop.”

  Märit grimaces. “We can have just vegetables and mealie-pap.” But a diet of maize porridge and vegetables soon pales, and they realize they will have to butcher one of the chickens.

  They stand together outside the coop surveying the fowls, which crowd against the wire thinking that the women have come to feed them. Tembi has a long knife in her hand.

  “How do we do it?” Märit asks. “I’ve never had to kill a chicken. Do you know how?”

  Tembi nods. “I’ve seen it done. You have to take the hen in your arms and put your hand over its eyes, and then it goes quiet. And then you must twist the neck and cut the throat.”

  “I suppose we have to do it,” Märit says with some trepidation. “Which one will it be?”

  Tembi opens the gate and they enter the coop. She surveys the hens. “This one, I think. She doesn’t lay much anymore.”

  Dik-Dik observes Märit with a cold eye, emitting deep warning clucks.

  “We can’t do it here, where the others can see.” Tembi hands the knife to Märit. “Hold this.” She goes amongst the milling chickens and scoops the hen up into her arms, holding the unprotesting bird close against her body.

  As Märit shuts the gate, Dik-Dik flings himself from his perch with an angry squawk and batters his outstretched wings against the mesh. Märit backs away quickly.

  Tembi carries the hen to the back of the house and waits outside the kitchen door for Märit to catch up.

  “What do we do now?” Märit says.

  “Do you have the knife?”

  Märit nods. Gritting her teeth, Tembi places one hand over the chicken’s head and makes a sharp twist with her arm. Immediately the hen squawks and flaps its body wildly. Tembi lets go and the bird flutters to the ground, but quickly Tembi pins it down with her knee and grabs the head again, bending it back to expose the throat.

  “Help me!” she calls to Märit.

  The bird is thrashing now, and Tembi tries to hold it steady. With another convulsive twist the hen frees its head and pecks at Märit’s hand.

  “Do it!” Tembi shouts.

  A squirt of greenish dung spatters onto Märit’s dress.

  Märit puts her hand on the neck, aware of the warmth in the feathered body. She plunges the knife into the hen’s breast, feeling a sudden hate for the bird—the ugly squawking, the flapping, the stink of the dung. Why won’t it just submit?

  “Cut its neck,” Tembi cries.

  The long blade is very sharp, and slices through the feathers and bites into the flesh and gristle beneath. A terrible cry erupts from the hen as Märit saws through the neck frantically. The bird’s head flips back and a great gout of hot blood spurts across Märit’s hands. Tembi falls back and the hen springs free, its head dangling to one side as the dying body jerks back and forth.

  Märit scrambles out of the way in terr
or as the convulsing bird flings itself against her legs. Then the chicken topples sideways, legs and wings twitching. Märit approaches gingerly. She is covered in blood and feathers and dung. The cold eye of the hen looks up at her from the severed head. She turns away, ashen faced, trembling, and lets the long knife drop from her fingers.

  From the direction of the coop the piercing, alarmed cries of the rooster resound in the air.

  “I never want to do that again,” Märit says. “I would rather starve.”

  Märit spends a long time at the bathroom sink, scrubbing her hands to remove the smell of the chicken from her skin. Later, when she walks in the garden, she still detects the smell on her fingers and she rubs her hands in a mint bush, breaking the leaves and grinding them into her skin. It is Tembi who retrieves the carcass, who sprinkles sand over the bloodstained earth, who boils a pot of water and plunges the bird into it and then plucks the feathers. It is Tembi who slices into the belly and removes the dark entrails, the liver and heart and lungs, and wraps them in paper and stores them in the freezer.

  Märit watches from the doorway with her mouth twisted in an expression of distaste. When Tembi says, “I’ll make a stew. You can help me,” Märit prefers to wash and slice the carrots and onions, reluctant to touch the chunks of meat.

  Tembi slaps a breast onto the cutting board. “Cut this for me.” Märit bites down on her lip and tries not to breathe as she slices the knife into the pale flesh.

  Afterwards, when the stew is simmering on the stove and Tembi calls her to dinner, Märit finds to her surprise that the aromas in the kitchen bring a quickening of anticipation to her tongue. She eats the stew, and despite the memory of the afternoon, she has an appetite. “It’s very good,” she says, reaching for the dish to fill her plate again. Tembi shakes her head and smiles.

  KOOS VAN STADEN comes over from the neighboring farm. He drives up in his battered old Mercedes, and when he gets out of the car Märit sees that Connie is not with him.

  “Goeie dag, Mevrou Laurens.”

  She acknowledges his greeting hesitantly and watches as he goes around to the back of the vehicle. “I have brought you some things. Connie told me you might be short.” Like most of the farmers in the area, he is blunt and to the point. He begins to unload some boxes of groceries onto the ground.

  “How is Connie?” Märit says.

  “She is well,” he grunts as he lifts a box of canned goods. “You will find coffee, salt, sugar in those sacks. And there is a carton of cigarettes. Connie said you like to smoke.”

  “Thank you. We are running short of things here. Please thank Connie for me. I did try to phone, but the lines are dead.”

  Koos straightens up and looks directly at Märit. “I know about your troubles, Mevrou. I know about the difficulties you have had, in town, with the police. And that is another reason why I have come here. We are leaving the district. At least until the troubles are over. We are going to Cape Town. Connie says to tell you that you must come with us.”

  “Why? Why are you leaving?”

  He shrugs and looks up at the sky, then turns his eyes towards the distant hills. “The border is just over there,” he says. “A whole continent against us. The army is advising those of us so close to the border to leave. It’s not safe.”

  “And if I come with you, what about Tembi?”

  He frowns quizzically.

  “My meid,” Märit explains. “She lives here with me.”

  Van Staden shakes his head. “No, you can’t bring any blacks with you. Certain areas are being declared ‘whites only.’ She must stay here.”

  “Where it’s not safe.”

  “I’m sorry, Mevrou, I don’t make these rules. Our destiny is not in our hands anymore.”

  Märit takes a step backwards. “No, I can’t leave.” His words fill her with apprehension, but she will not run from the farm now and leave Tembi behind.

  Koos opens the door of his vehicle. “It’s your choice, Mevrou. We are leaving on Wednesday if you change your mind.”

  37

  IN THIS PART of the country there is a bird, not often seen, that favors the most dense foliage, whose song is seldom heard, except in the early mornings. The sound of its song is three repeated notes followed by two shorter tones in a higher register.

  One morning as Tembi returns from her daily watering of the plants behind the koppie, she notices as she passes the vegetable garden that some of the tomato plants have been trampled in the night. At the same time she hears the distinctive birdsong from the bluegum trees beside the house, and she pauses to listen, searching the leaves for a glimpse of the bird.

  The song stops abruptly, and then, to her amazement, the notes are sounded backwards—two short, three long. A moment later the whole sequence is repeated. Tembi steps forward carefully, peering at the branches. Just as she catches a glimpse of a flash of red high in the thickest part of the leaves, Tembi looks down and sees the man.

  He is sitting at the base of a tree with his back leaning against the trunk, and in his hands is a small musical instrument. As she stops in her tracks, the man plucks at his instrument and echoes the trilled notes of the hidden bird.

  She stares at him in astonishment.

  He stops his music making and reaches for a tomato from a small heap next to his leg. The juice trickles over his chin as he bites into the tomato, and spatters his shirt. He chews slowly, then wipes the juice from his face and reaches for another tomato.

  Those are our tomatoes, Tembi realizes. That we work so hard for.

  “What are you doing?” she shouts.

  The man looks up, acknowledges her presence with a smile, and reaches for another tomato, proffering it in her direction.

  At the sound of Tembi’s cry, Märit runs out to the veranda, sees the man, and calls to Tembi, “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know.” She faces the man again. “What are you doing? Those are our tomatoes.”

  He nods his head and smiles.

  The two women approach cautiously.

  “Who are you?” Märit demands. “What do you want here?”

  He is dressed in a grimy pair of trousers and an overcoat draped across his equally grimy shirt. He gives Märit a wet smile, offering the tomato in her direction. She sees there is something foolish in his eyes.

  “Where do you come from?” Märit asks. “Why are you here?”

  In reply he takes up his little instrument and plucks out a tune that mimics the cadences of her voice.

  In spite of herself, Tembi gives a small chuckle. “What is your name?” she asks. “Sawubona, mnumzana. Uphumaphi? Where do you come from?”

  He nods enthusiastically.

  She tries again, speaking Xhosa. “Ngubani igama lakho?”

  With the flat of his hand the man clears a space in the dust between his bare feet and with one finger carefully prints the letters MICHAEL.

  Märit leans forward. “Michael?”

  He makes an inarticulate sound in the back of his mouth and looks up at her with a pleased expression.

  “Why are you here, Michael?” she asks.

  He makes the incoherent sound again and smiles at her. His tongue comes out, and it is a stump, pink and wet, amputated. She recoils, shocked. How does a man come to have his tongue amputated? Märit wonders.

  “He cannot talk,” Tembi says, quick to realize his plight. “You don’t speak, mnumzana?”

  He points at the word in the dust, then reaches for his instrument and plays a quick succession of notes that could be taken for the seven letters of the alphabet that spell his name.

  “He has come to us,” Tembi says. “We must help him.”

  Märit shakes her head doubtfully. She raises a hand to her throat, staring at the man’s mouth.

  “Yes. He is hungry.”

  “We don’t have anything extra.”

  “He has come to us,” Tembi says with a finality that brooks no argument.

  It is not Michael himself that
Märit is against; she is filled with anxiety against any further intrusion into their lives. Every time strangers come to the farm there is trouble, destruction, killing.

  “Come,” Tembi says, extending her hand to him. “I am Tembi. This is Märit.”

  He gathers the tomatoes into the pockets of his overcoat and takes up his instrument, which is an ingenious contraption fashioned out of an old pilchard can and what appear to be the strings from a tennis racket.

  “Come to the house,” Tembi tells him. “You can wash the dust from your face and you can eat with us. Are you hungry, Michael?”

  Michael smiles his smile, which is both emptier than that of other people and also shining with something that is not often in the smile of other people. He plucks at his instrument, and there is joy in the music.

  In the kitchen Tembi serves up a bowl of cold porridge to which she adds a little canned condensed milk, and gestures for Michael to sit at the table.

  He eats quickly, with evident hunger, the porridge trickling down his chin, his damaged tongue making futile efforts to lick away the milky residue. Märit finds it difficult not to stare at that pink stubby tongue darting between his lips.

  He eats like a child, without the nicety of manners, intent on his hunger. Märit has no idea of what his age could be, for his smooth, round, guileless face is childlike. But his hands are those of a man.

  “Where do you come from, Michael? Where is your home?”

  He turns and points with his spoon to the land beyond the window.

  Anywhere, Märit thinks. One of the wanderers, the relocated. “Are you lost?” she asks.

  Michael nods, his attention on his plate.

  Tembi pushes a cup of tea across the table. “You can stay here.” Her eyes meet those of Märit with a questioning look.

  “I suppose so,” Märit says. “He can stay here. You can help us on the farm, Michael. Would you like to do that?”

  He grins eagerly as he finishes his porridge and slurps down the tea. Märit clears his plate away and rinses it in the sink. “Come, Michael, we’ll show you around.”