A Blade of Grass

by Lewis Desoto

  WIND CRACKLES through the flames, sending sparks towards Khoza. He coughs and moves away, finding a seat on the same side of the fire as Märit, but without looking at her, his face turned to the night.

  She ponders the story he has just told. Not for the truth of it, for she believes it to be true. Neither for the question of whether Khoza is the man in the story, for she believes he is. No, she ponders the story for her place in it.

  The question waits. She feels that Khoza waits for an answer from her, but when she looks across at him, he seems lost inside himself. Because it is her question. It is she who sits across from the man.

  His scent, of fire, tobacco, and something else that can only be characterized as his maleness, touches her. It is the smell of a man, which has not been in the house since Ben died.

  Märit inhales and fills her nostrils with the scent of the man. Staring into the fire, she sees once again Khoza standing under the sun, his back glistening with sweat in the furrow down his spine. She sees his nakedness, and she wants to taste the smell of him. She wants to put her hand on the place where the moisture shines in the furrow of his back and touch his sweat on her fingers and taste the scent of him.

  She has never touched him. She shares the same food, smokes the same cigarette, uses the same knives and forks, but she has never touched him.

  Märit looks at his hand where it rests on his knee. His hands are slim, with long fingers, well proportioned. So easy to put her hand on his, to touch him, to bring him away from the strangeness that separates them.

  Yet she cannot. Even as she stares at his hand she cannot. Everything in her life forbids it.

  But did she not touch Dollar, the pool boy? Did she not wrap her arms and her legs around his torso in the pool? What forbade her then?

  Her eyes are fixed on his slim wrist, on the smooth skin above his wrist, on that delicate place where the hand narrows into the wrist, then flares slightly into the thickness of the forearm. His body radiates a kind of magnetism, so that without realizing it, she leans towards him.

  Märit reaches out and puts her fingers on the smooth skin of Khoza’s wrist. Her fingers are pale on his dark skin, and his skin is cool under the heat of her touch. Yet it burns her, so that she leans into him, into the heat. The beat of his pulse echoes in her body, so that her own pulse becomes his.

  Here in the glow of the small fire, on the wide plain in the valley, in the small place on the immense continent, under the greater immensity of the stars in heaven, nothing forbids the man and the woman. A man and a woman—it is the simplest fact there is.

  Khoza turns to face her, and she presses her body to his, and she takes his kiss, his lips, her tongue seeking his; all the taste of him is in her mouth, all the dust of his wanderings come home into her. She takes his hand and lifts it to her breast, to the pulse in her breast. Märit lifts her head and seeks Khoza’s eyes, to see the desire there, to see that he wants her.

  He glances quickly at the house.

  And in that quick movement, his eyes leaving hers for a moment, Märit recognizes something that causes her desire to suddenly retreat. She remembers how he sneaked into the house that day he arrived, furtive and watchful. She remembers him watching her from the other side of the fire—the mocking devil with the red light in his eyes.

  Yes, he wants her. But what else does he want?

  From the moment that he first stepped into the house she knew she desired him. Beneath her shock and her fear of a stranger in her house, even then she knew him as the man and herself as the woman. Even then.

  He wants her, and when he has had her, then what? He wants power over her, and he wants Tembi, and then he wants the farm.

  Märit pushes away from him; his hand falls away from her breast. She rises to her feet, looks down at him, then turns and flees towards the house. Swiftly she runs into the house and straight to her room, where she locks the door behind her. She sits on the bed, listening to the beat of her fearful heart.

  After a while she gets up and unlocks the door. She is ashamed. Not of her desire, but of her fear. Will she ever be free of fear? So she unlocks the door and returns to sit on the bed and waits.

  Eventually Märit hears his step on the veranda, and the closing of the door, and the bolt sliding home. She imagines his tread on the slate floor as he sidles down the corridor to her room.

  At the last moment she springs across the room and turns the key in the lock. She holds her breath, sensing him on the other side of the door. The handle turns slowly and the door moves a fraction, as if from the pressure of a hand. Märit stares at the handle.

  The handle is released. Märit waits, hardly breathing. Slowly the handle turns again, and then is released.

  She stands a long time at the door, listening, frightened of herself, of what she has done, of what she wants. And when her desire is gone, and when her fear is gone, and when the night is just a night, she crawls into bed with a sense of betrayal and bitterness. With a sense of failure.

  Now she knows how the story ends.

  47

  MÄRIT DOES NOT SPEAK to Khoza in the morning. She does not look at him. He does not speak to her, he does not look at her.

  When she enters the kitchen and sees him at the table with Tembi, Märit pours herself a cup of tea and carries it to her room, where she waits until she hears Khoza leave the house. Only then does she go back to the kitchen.

  Tembi says, “What is between you and Khoza?”

  “Nothing. What do you mean?”

  “You don’t say ‘good morning’ to him, you don’t look at him, you act as if he is not here.”

  Märit shrugs.

  Tembi says, “What is between you?”

  “There is nothing.”

  “But Khoza does not say anything to you either. He looked at you with anger when you took your tea.”

  “Ask him.”

  “No, I am asking you.”

  Märit reaches for a rusk.

  Tembi says, “What happened between you last night?”

  “Nothing happened. We sat by the fire for a while after you went in, and then I came in to bed myself.”

  “And Khoza, did he come to bed with you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Why are you questioning me like this? You’re imagining something that didn’t happen.”

  Tembi moves so that she can see Märit’s face. “You are not honest with me.”

  “Stop this, Tembi.”

  “I see it in your face. You have something to hide.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I heard Khoza come to your room last night.”

  “My door was locked.” Märit cannot prevent the blush rising to her face.

  “Your face betrays you,” Tembi says with sudden venom in her voice. “You lie to me.”

  Märit turns on her. “All right! You want the truth? Khoza tried to kiss me, he tried to force himself on me after you had gone to bed. That’s what happened!” The lie is out, too late to retract. But the truth is impossible to tell.

  “And you let him.”

  “No, I did not! I came into the house and locked my door. Yes, he tried to get in, but the door was locked.”

  “You want him. I see the way you look at him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I wouldn’t lower myself to his level.”

  “Why? Because you think he is not good enough for you?”

  “You’re putting words into my mouth. Either I want him or I don’t want him—make up your mind.”

  Tembi shakes her head in disbelief and turns away. Beyond her, a figure crosses the garden, framed for a moment in the window—a man in a slouch hat, her husband’s hat—and for an instant Märit sees Ben.

  Tembi also notices the resemblance. “You have had a husband, now you want Khoza too.”

  The truth is impossible to tell. “Tembi…I promise you…he was not in my room last night. I slept alone.” Half a truth.

  In a wounded voice Tembi cries, “Your face be
trays you!”

  She slams the door behind her as she runs out.

  KHOZA, wearing the slouch hat and a pair of old corduroy trousers that once belonged to the farmer, finds Tembi standing at the foot of the vegetable garden, her arms folded tight against her body, her chest heaving with rapid breaths. He carries the shotgun on his shoulder.

  He stops and smiles at her, but she jerks her head away and stares in the opposite direction. “You are fighting with Märit? Things do not go well with you and Märit?” He sounds almost pleased.

  “I wonder what things go well between her and you!”

  Khoza kicks at a pebble.

  Glaring at him, Tembi says, “Maybe you would like it more if I left this farm so that you can be with her.”

  Khoza shifts the gun to his other shoulder. His voice is low with offended pride. “Why do you say that to me? You know that Märit does not like me.”

  “But you like her. You prefer her. Maybe you want to have a white woman.”

  “Never!”

  Tembi studies his face. “Märit says that you tried to kiss her last night, that you tried to force yourself on her.”

  Khoza laughs and makes a spinning motion with his forefinger next to his temple. “That one, she is all mixed up in her head. Smoking the dagga has made her thoughts crazy.”

  “You shouldn’t give it to her.” She softens her voice. “You didn’t try to kiss her?”

  He makes a grimace.

  “You don’t want her? You don’t want to be with her and have this farm?”

  He recoils. “You are crazy! Maybe the dagga is in your head too. Crazy women!” Shaking his head he stalks off.

  Tembi bites her lip, frowning with doubt. Then she runs to catch up with him.

  They walk apart a little distance, in silence, skirting the river. Suddenly a guinea hen breaks from the underbrush and flutters into the air across the water. Khoza raises the shotgun and tracks its flight until it drops into cover on the opposite bank.

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?”

  “We don’t need any meat yet. And I need to keep the bullets for other things.” He walks on, then stops. “Maybe I should shoot Märit?”

  “Khoza! Don’t say such a thing!”

  “No, I don’t mean it. But why should she own all this?” He extends the gun with one arm, making a wide arc. “All of this farm just for her? You should be Missus here, not Märit.”

  “But Märit and her husband bought this farm. They paid for it.”

  “Did they pay the people who lived here and worked the land?”

  “They bought it from the previous farmer. The other family had been here a long time.”

  “And who did they buy it from? How did they get the land?”

  Tembi follows the path that curves towards the gate.

  “They stole the land,” Khoza calls out after her. “They took it by force. There were people living here long before the whites came, all over this country, and the whites stole it from them. Märit bought this land from people who had no right to sell it. Were any of us allowed to buy land here? No. We can only have land where the soil is hard and dry, where the rains never come. Or else we have to go to the slums of the cities.” He strides past her towards the farm gate and stops there, looking at the name painted on the gatepost. “Kudufontein!” he exclaims disdainfully, poking the gun barrel at the sign.

  “This place is also called Isitimane,” Tembi says. “The Place of Shadows.” She points. “For the big rock there, because it puts its own shadow on the land.”

  “They change the names of everything and put their own names on things, and then they tell you there were no names before they came. They took away the name of our country. They make up history. They don’t even call us by our proper names—it’s just boy or meid.”

  “But Märit is not like that.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “She is different. There is goodness in her.”

  Khoza disregards her observation. “Everything will be different soon. The land will go back to the people who work it, not those who can buy and sell. It is our land now.” He swings the gun barrel again in a wide arc, encompassing all the farm. “All of this is ours.” He points up at the house. “That house is yours, Tembi. You can call it whatever you want.” Setting the shotgun against the post he says, “Wait here, I have to get something.”

  She leans against the gate with one foot on the lowest rung, slowly rocking back and forth.

  Perhaps there is some truth in what Khoza tells her. There were people in the kraal before she came, before Märit came, before the other farmers came. This much she knows—that people like her have always lived on this land. Is not her own mother resting in this very soil now? Does she not belong to this place? And does it not follow then that this place could belong to her?

  Her life here has always been defined by whoever lives in the farmhouse, whoever owns the land. Yet she lives there too now. And not only because Märit has invited her. The house and the farm belong to Märit. But if they did not?

  For a moment she allows herself to see a new life on the farm: the land fertile and green once more, cattle in the fields, the mealie fields thick with plants, the orchard ripe with fruit. There will be no kraal, no washhouse with cold water taps, no open cooking fires.

  She sees herself living in the house, wearing fine clothes, driving a fine car into town, where she will enter any shop she pleases and the shopkeeper will call her “Missus.”

  But who else will live on the farm? Where is Märit in this picture? Where is Khoza? This part of the picture is hazy. And what does Khoza mean when he says this land is “ours”? Does he mean the country, or does he mean the farm? Does he mean it is his?

  Tembi is still musing on these questions when Khoza returns with a can of paint in his hand and a brush tucked under his arm.

  “What are you going to do?” she asks.

  “This is our farm now, and we will give it a new name.” He opens the can, dips the brush into the paint, and with a few rough strokes obliterates the word Kudufontein. “Here.” He thrusts the brush towards Tembi. “Write a new name.”

  Tembi hesitates. She looks up at the house.

  “But what name shall I give it?”

  “Call it ‘Khoza and Tembi,’” he says, only half in jest.

  Should she paint in the old name, Isitimane? But she cannot name the farm with a word of darkness. There is too much shadow on all their lives already.

  “Go on,” Khoza urges.

  Tembi takes the brush, dips it into the paint, then just above where the other name had been, she writes.

  Carefully she paints in the letters, as carefully as when she was a small girl writing her own name in her exercise book. And when she is finished she steps back and looks at what she has written, with the same wonder as that of a small child who writes her name for the first time. With the same wonder that a child realizes when she claims her own name by writing it down. Tembi writes the letters with wonder, claiming the world by her own hand.

  “What is that word?” Khoza asks.

  “Ezulwini,” Tembi says. “The Valley of Heaven.”

  48

  MÄRIT SITS IN FRONT of the mirror at her dresser. Have I been wrong in everything? she asks herself. A bitterness is upon her, and the sense of having failed in some profound manner.

  She studies herself in the mirror—her African dress, her shorn hair that is growing back unevenly. What is she supposed to be? Who is she supposed to be? I have tried to be something other than what I am, she concludes.

  Leaving the mirror she goes to stand at the bedroom window. The man in the slouch hat walks past on his way to the sheds, and her heart gives a queer lurch in her chest. Who is he? What does he want? If only it were Ben, she tells herself, and nothing had happened and nothing had changed, and the world was the same as before.

  The interloper who walks across the land in her husband’s hat, with the gun across his should
er, walks as if he already owns the farm. She knows that he wears the hat for her, to signal his intentions.

  Looking beyond him, Märit sees Tembi, in her bare feet and simple clothes, a copper necklace at her neck and the blue bracelet on her wrist.

  They are part of the landscape, the man and the woman, while she hides in the house.

  Märit turns away and sees her reflection again. What have I tried to be, she asks herself, with my colored sarong and my beads and bangles? I can never be like Tembi, I can never be like them.

  She removes the bracelets from her wrists and drops them onto the dresser. She unfastens the sarong, the brightly colored sarong from Durban, bought in the African market, and divests herself of this too, peeling it from her body like a skin that does not fit.

  She bathes, washing the dust of the farm from her limbs, rinsing the scent of wood smoke from her hair, scrubbing the traces of soil from under her cracked fingernails.

  When she has bathed, Märit dresses in her cream-colored suit—so strange to wear these clothes again—and sits at the mirror to apply makeup to her face. Her hands have not forgotten the art: mascara on the eyelashes, a line penciled in to accentuate each eyebrow, a touch of faint blue on the eyelids, so that her eyes become larger, almond shaped, intense. She rubs rouge into her suntanned cheeks, emphasizing the contours of her cheekbones. Finally she applies lipstick, red, her mouth becoming lush and full.

  To each earlobe Märit clips a small pearl earring, and around her neck a necklace of pearls. A dab of perfume behind each ear and on her wrists, to cloak her in a scent that is neither dust nor wood smoke nor the sweat of labor. She paints her fingernails red to match her lipstick, covering the broken and ragged edges, and when the varnish is dry she eases her stockinged feet into a pair of high-heeled shoes, then walks up and down the room a few times to accustom herself to the forgotten sensation. There is nothing to be done about her hair except to trim a few ragged strands.

  Dusk brings a fading of the light. Somewhere else in the world people are sipping cocktails, an orchestra is playing dance music. Somewhere out there people are living normal lives.