A Blade of Grass

by Lewis Desoto

  Tembi pushes her chair away from the table and stands. “I will help you, Märit.”

  The captain shakes his head. “Oh, no, we can’t have that, Miss Tembi. Not at all. Märit will be the meid. She will do the work. Anything else would be letting the side down. Come, leave her to it.” He beckons with a finger at Khoza. “And you, Mr. Khoza, I would like you to stay within my sight.”

  IN THE EVENING, the captain commands Märit to prepare a meal for his men. He again forbids Tembi to enter the kitchen.

  Märit measures out the fine white mealie meal into a pot. As she tips the last of the flour from the bag she realizes that this is the end of it. She adds water to the pot and sets it on the stove to boil. How many meals would this have made if she didn’t have to feed the soldiers?

  The soldiers have made a campfire outside the house. Märit brings the plates, the cutlery, the cups. She brings the pots of mealie-pap, any vegetables she could find, rusks, some strips of jerky. She brings everything.

  When Tembi tries to help, the captain restrains her. “Sit down. She will serve.”

  She moves amongst the men silently, handmaiden to them. She spoons food onto their plates, she pours water into their cups. Her eyes are downcast, her step light. After the food is served, she returns to the kitchen and sits at the table to wait. She is invisible, she is a ghost.

  Around the fire the soldiers eat the food of the farm. The liquor cabinet has been opened, all the bottles are brought out. The liquor is passed around amongst the men. When they have eaten, Märit collects the pots and the plates and the cutlery and the cups. The men lounge on the ground, smoking, passing around the liquor bottles. Märit walks with downcast eyes.

  She washes the dishes and the cups and puts them back into their places on the shelves. From outside the house she hears the sound of music—somebody has a concertina, somebody has a harmonica. There is laughter, there is sudden singing.

  If she wanted to she could walk away into the night. The guards are nowhere to be seen. She is alone, invisible.

  The soldiers have stoked up the fire on the lawn and are gathered in a rough circle. The light glints on bottles being passed around. Three of the soldiers are moving in an impromptu dance, shuffling back and forth, then raising their legs and stamping them in time to the music.

  Märit leans against the stone wall of the house and watches from the shadows. She steps away from the wall and approaches the fire, trying to see if Tembi is there.

  One of the soldiers notices her. “Come and dance for us, Missus!”

  Märit ignores him.

  The soldier reaches for Märit’s wrist and pulls her into the circle of light. “You can dance now, Missus.” The smell of brandy is on his breath.

  She breaks away and tries to retreat into the shadows again, where she can be invisible, but the circle closes around her, hands push her back towards the flames.

  “Dance, Missus!”

  She begins to dance, mimicking the shuffle and stamping of feet. The music increases in tempo; the men clap their hands, speeding up the dance.

  Märit stumbles and is caught and pushed towards the fire. Someone presses a bottle to her lips and she tries to move her head away but the liquid is poured across her lips and when she opens her mouth to gasp for breath the brandy spills down her throat.

  Märit lurches away, her eyes searching for Tembi.

  Hands spin her around, the men clap and chant. Somebody holds her arms and pours liquor into her mouth. The music and the clapping and the chanting and the men’s feet stamping out the rhythm on the earth and the dancing flames and her spinning feet—everything whirls faster and faster. The night blurs and gyrates, and the stars tilt in the sky and slide towards the horizon.

  She stumbles again and falls against arms that swing her upright. As she is pushed into the circle of light again, a hand snatches at her sarong. Märit slaps the hand away, but someone else grasps her shoulders and twirls her off balance again, and another hand pulls at her clothes. She staggers out of their reach, but the circle closes in on her, pressing tighter, a circle of hands snatching at her clothes.

  “Dance, Missus! Dance!”

  Märit tries to break through the press of bodies, to get out from the circle, but now she is being pushed back and forth roughly, back and forth between the hands. Someone grasps the hem of her sarong and jerks hard. The force spins her towards the flames and the sarong comes loose. With a quick tug it is pulled free from her body and she falls towards the fire, at the last moment twisting to avoid the flames.

  And suddenly the heat is on her bare skin and the sarong is tossed past her head. Märit makes an ineffectual grab for it, but too late. It bursts into flame on the blazing coals. She falls to her knees in her underpants. The men whistle and shout. She turns in one direction, then the other, clutching her hands over her exposed body. Everywhere the faces of strangers, laughing at her. She cannot hide. Whichever way she turns, they see her, see her nakedness.

  Märit tries to curl into a ball. The circle tightens around her. Hands pluck at her arms, pulling her upright, exposing her body to their mockery.

  “Leave her alone!”

  The cry is shrill, cutting through the laughter and the whistling, silencing the music.

  Tembi forces her way through the jeering soldiers. “Get away!” she screams. “Leave her alone!” She puts an arm around Märit’s shoulders and pulls her outside the circle of men.

  Head down, tears streaming down her cheeks, hands clutched across her front, Märit stumbles away from the fire.

  “Come away from here, Märit,” Tembi urges. “Come away.”

  Then the captain is there next to them. “Let her go,” he says, separating the two women roughly. He sneers at Märit scornfully, “You, go on. Get away from us.”

  Sobbing, Märit flees into the darkness, then veers back to the house in a panic. In the bedroom she grabs clothes, any clothes, frantically trying to cover her shame, before she bolts back into the night.

  If only Ben were still here, to protect her, to order these invaders off her land, to kick them back out into the veldt.

  Somehow she finds the hut in the kraal, somehow she manages to drag the battered dresser across the entrance, then she retreats into the farthest, darkest corner she can find and curls herself against the mud wall, pulling the old mattress up around her, cowering down into the darkness where nobody can see her, where there is only the desperate thud of her own heart.

  Exhaustion finally envelops her and she burrows deeper under the mattress, closing her eyes.

  IN THE DARKEST HOUR a scuffling comes at the entrance to the hut, a creak as the dresser is shifted.

  Märit jerks upright.

  A barely audible whisper from the darkness. “Märit? Märit, are you in there?”

  “Tembi?”

  “Märit!”

  “Tembi,” she whimpers.

  The dresser moves and a shape slips through the gap, fingers searching for Märit’s face. A racking sob bursts from Märit’s chest and she flings herself into Tembi’s arms.

  “Oh, Märit, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry for this.” Tembi’s hot tears splash down, mingling with Märit’s own. “I wanted to help you. Oh, Märit!”

  Märit weeps like a child; her heart breaks and convulses, the sobs shaking her body. Tembi’s fingertips soothe away the tears from Märit’s cheeks.

  “I want to die,” Märit moans.

  “Shh.” Tembi cradles Märit’s head against her breast. “I’m so very, very sorry.”

  “I want to die.”

  Tembi strokes Märit’s face and her tears fall. “Weep instead. Weep.”

  And Märit weeps. Until, like a weeping child, she is depleted and emptied and exhausted, and like a child, she lays her head on Tembi’s breast and falls into weary slumber.

  52

  TEMBI WAKES in a place that is at once familiar and strange. The events of the night before come back with a stabbing clarity that makes
her want to press her eyes shut and retreat into sleep. Carefully she eases away from the sleeping Märit and edges past the dresser in the doorway and into the empty kraal. How desolate the farm seems! Where can she go? Who must she be? As she stands on the morning-cool ground, Tembi feels as if she is being tugged in two directions at once. Behind her in the hut is Märit, wounded and broken. In the house is Khoza. If only life were different. If only it were Khoza who slept in the hut now, and there were no farmhouse, no soldiers, no history of pain on this farm. If only it were Khoza who slept peacefully in the hut now while she made the morning fire, and cooked the breakfast for him. And afterwards they would go together into the fields and the gardens, man and woman.

  Her body goes warm and weak inside when she remembers the night she spent in the hut with Khoza, and the tenderness in his hands as they caressed her. And then her heart chills, because she remembers the scorn in Khoza’s eyes when he watched the men force Märit to dance, and she remembers that he stood by and did nothing to stop the torment. Her heart chills even as her body remembers the tenderness.

  She is being pulled in two directions at once, and neither place will ease the loneliness that has descended upon her as she stands in the desolation of the deserted kraal.

  TEMBI SEEKS REFUGE in the only place she can—her garden. Each time she visits here she is afraid that some small animal will have discovered a way through the barrier, and she will find nothing but chewed-down stalks. Always her heart beats a little faster in apprehension as she moves the thornbushes aside.

  But all is safe. The plants have spread across the whole surface of the little plot—thick stalks of vine winding over the soil, and the glistening dew upon them—and from these vines branch off smaller stalks and leaves. Distributed amongst the vines are the five fruits, each in its own place, quite separate from its neighbors, as if each has found its own best place.

  Each fruit is now the size of her bunched fist. And each fruit is a pale yellow, darkening slightly where it is joined to its stalk, soft to the gentle pressure of her fingers, almost ripe.

  Tembi has no name for these fruits; she knows only the taste they will have when ripe.

  Lifting her bucket she pours out water, an equal measure for each of the yellow fruits, the water trickling down towards the roots. Her careful fingers snip off any dried or discolored leaves. Then she arranges the barrier of thornbushes to protect her garden, making sure no gap exists to tempt entrance.

  Her heart is lifted by the growth of these five yellow fruits, for through all the hardship and change they are constant in their purpose—to ripen and grow in the sun, to bring forth sweetness out of the earth.

  The time will come, one day, when she will gather the fruits in her hand and bring them to Märit, and to Khoza—a gift. The day will come.

  Tembi raises her face to the sun, and the warm rays dispel the fog and chill that grips her heart. She raises her face to the sun, and the warmth brings hope to her soul.

  The morning sun rises above the hills and above the trees, and the warmth of the sun falls upon the fields and the grasses. The birds call to the sun newly risen, and somewhere the beasts of the field lift their heads to the scent of the warmth that falls upon them. And somewhere, the women and men of the earth find hope in their hearts.

  The grass in the orchard is thick underfoot, littered with fallen peaches, and a sweet jam-like smell hangs in the air. In the dappled yellow and green sunlight, bees hum and buzz in the patches of sunlight, gorging themselves on sweetness.

  Once, as a small girl, Tembi walked somewhere through a grove of fruit trees like this one, hand in hand with her father, in an orchard similar to this one, where the perfume of peaches and the humming of bees was like a paradise hidden in the dry veldt. The fruit was high above her head, too high for her, and her father reached up to a branch to pluck a ripe peach for Tembi. From his pocket her father brought out a small penknife that sparkled bright in the sunlight. With the knife so delicate in his large hands he carefully peeled the peach, turning the fruit in his hand as the small blade sliced the skin into a long curving spiral. He held the spiral up for her to see, then cut a sliver of the fruit and placed it delicately on her lips.

  Tembi remembers the brief sensation of the knife blade on her lip, followed by the exquisite sweetness of the peach flesh on her tongue.

  She loved her father for this. She admired him beyond measure. She loved him for his skill, his assurance, but mostly for the fact that he would bring down the peach from its branch and peel and cut it so cleverly, all for her. Even though she was a child she knew his devotion, and even though she was a child she realized that it was possible to love a man for the kindness in him. Her heart breaks for his absence. Here in this leafy enclosure where the smell of ripe fruit is in the air and the bees hum in the dappled light, her heart breaks for his absence.

  A horse is loose in the orchard, one of the soldiers’ horses, cropping at the grass near where she stands. She hears the sound of its teeth pulling at the grass, and when she moves forward, it looks up at her with mild and gentle eyes. Oh, where is her father, that he cannot ride up to this house on his own horse, and call her name, and taste the sweetness of the gift that she grows for him in her garden.

  Tembi moves towards the horse, her hand extended to stroke its warm flank, to feel the gentle life in it, to touch the long smooth neck.

  The horse jerks its head suddenly.

  A man steps out from behind a tree. When she sees his face Tembi’s heart freezes.

  Joshua.

  He moves out from behind the tree, where he has been watching her, and heads straight towards Tembi. The skin on her arms prickles in alarm. Then she sees the bayonet in his hand, the blade that catches the sunlight and reflects it back in a silvery gleam.

  Tembi runs. She does not pause to cry out, or even to draw a breath. She runs. For her life.

  He darts to block her passage towards the house. She turns the other way, towards the river, but again he anticipates her and dashes forward, suddenly in front of her.

  Tembi races towards the kraal. Joshua’s breathing is hoarse behind her, almost upon her neck, and the drumming of his feet on the ground is as loud as the drumming in her heart.

  Joshua kicks one of her heels so that her legs tangle and she pitches upon the ground. Tembi rolls away, trying to regain her feet, but he is quickly upon her, the bayonet flashing in front of her eyes. He straddles her waist and brings the blade of steel down towards her neck, the sharp point pricking at her flesh.

  “Shut up or I’ll kill you!”

  She shrinks from the blade.

  His eyes are wild, yet determined. Tembi knows in this instant what he wants, even though she has never experienced this look from a man before. She knows it instinctively, as a woman. There is no other thought in his eyes.

  The tip of the bayonet cuts her skin—a small cut only.

  She submits because of the determination in his eyes and the inhumanity of his gaze, and she submits because of the bayonet at her neck. She knows that if she struggles, or screams for help, he will kill her. She submits, because it is better to live than to die. If she is nothing to him, then this will be nothing to her—less than nothing. She will not give up her life to this man, no matter what else she must sacrifice. She is not Tembi to him, not an individual. She is just a female animal, to be hunted, to be taken. She is nothing to him. Nothing more than this.

  Tembi lies inert and submits as his knee forces her thighs apart and his hand pushes up her dress and tears away her underpants. She stills herself and endures as he unbuckles his belt and forces her thighs wider apart.

  She turns her head away.

  A fallen peach lies near her head, the flesh exposed on one side where birds have pecked at it. She smells the faint sourness of the decaying fruit. A small green caterpillar is making its slow and deliberate way across the surface of the peach. And then there is a sudden buzzing as a wasp lights on the fruit. The caterpillar lif
ts its head, antennae querying the shape in front of it. The wasp falls upon the caterpillar.

  Joshua shudders above her, his hoarse panting loud in her ears. Then he rolls away.

  She hears him fasten his belt and stand up.

  “If you speak of this, I will find you and kill you,” he says. “You and your Missus. All of you.”

  His footsteps recede across the grass.

  Still she watches the wasp devouring the caterpillar, and she lies there under the indifferent sky with the semen drying on her thighs.

  AT LAST Tembi lifts herself from the grass. She does not look to see where the man is. He is nothing to her.

  With slow steps she makes her way out of the orchard. At the riverbank she removes her dress and wades into the water, forward into the river until the flowing current rises to her neck, to her lips, over her eyes. Deep into the water she plunges. How easy now to just open her mouth and let the river fill her and take her away. The shame is upon her like a great weight, heavy enough to carry her down into the depths. Her lungs cry out for air, but she holds herself below the surface, holding the weight of the pain in her chest. But she cannot. She kicks her feet against the bottom of the river and surfaces, gulping down air, even though there is no sweetness in the air and there is no music in the voices of the birds and there is no warmth in the sun. She breathes only because she must, to live, and it is better to live than to die.

  If she could go naked when she emerges from the river, naked across the veldt, she would, but she must clothe herself, even though her dress is a garment of shame to her now. But she clothes herself, then walks away from the river, away from the orchard, away from the house, and up the slope of the small hill to the place where the graves of her people rest.

  And here is the resting place of her mother.

  Tembi stands there with her hands clasped together. “I greet you, my mother,” she says.