by Lewis Desoto
grass. And still the longing and the hope. The tragedy that Märit carried with her and the yearning that was on Tembi’s face were in my heart, too.
“Some readers of the book have asked why I, as a man, have chosen to write from the perspective of two women.”
When my wife read the manuscript she remarked that Märit reminded her of descriptions of my mother. Shortly after I left South Africa my mother died. Because of the circumstances of my childhood I never knew her very well. Looking at Märit now, I do see that the elusiveness of her inner character, and the air of melancholy that she carries, owe a great deal to my memory of my mother.
“A Blade of Grass is written out of memory, not the facts of history but the emotions caused by history.”
Some readers of the book have asked why I, as a man, have chosen to write from the perspective of two women. History, in fiction as in reality, has been a stage dominated by men. Sometimes I feel that male characters in books can no longer surprise us. But women are still capable, as characters in fiction, to do the unexpected, to set out on the uncharted journeys of discovery. At the same time, I believe it is true that women are more sensitive to the emotional nuances of situations, and more expressive of the effects of those emotions. Also, for me as a writer, to create characters that are mostly unlike myself is a method to retain some objectivity in the creation, so that the book is more art and less self-confession.
A Blade of Grass is written out of memory, not the facts of history but the emotions caused by history. At the heart of the book is a simple question: Where is home? All the characters and all the actions are driven by this question. Where do I lay my head at night to sleep undisturbed and wake to serenity and peace? The anxiety that comes from not being able to answer the question is what gives the book its air of tension, and its tragedy.
“Home is not only a physical place, it is very much where the heart rests.”
I could not write this book until apartheid had ended in South Africa. Not for any political reason, but because apartheid had put a lock on my memory and my imagination. To write a book about South Africa while the system of racial oppression existed would have meant writing a political book, as an act and a statement. But there were other voices, better able than mine, more urgent, more desperate, that were speaking the necessary truths in those years. With the breaking of the chains that strangled the country came a release in my own heart, a return from an exile that allowed me to cease mourning, and to believe in the future again.
The language and style of the book have an intentional cadence and rhythm that owes a great deal to the Bible. During my childhood I was very moved by the narratives of the Old Testament. Tembi and Märit seem to me to exist in that elemental, almost archaic landscape. Their story of struggle and sacrifice and exile is an old, old one, yet it continues to this day, all over the world, still being created and played out in the lives of those who still ask, Where is home?
Home is not only a physical place, it is very much where the heart rests. The attempt at friendship between the two women, Märit and Tembi, of such disparate backgrounds, with so many impediments standing between them, is also an attempt to find a home—a home for the spirit and the heart, where both hope and love can exist.
Read on
Grace: Surname Unknown
GRACE LIVED WITH US, in our house in the affluent suburb on the edge of the city. With us, but separate. I do not know when she came to live with us, to work for us, or where she came from. I do not know how old she was, for to a child all adults are of an age, and I was a child. Grace seemed always to have been there. A presence in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the big rooms of the house.
Grace cooked, she cleaned, she baked, she washed our clothes and ironed them. She assisted in serving dinner, bringing in the dishes she had cooked. But she did not eat with us. She ate alone, sometimes in the kitchen, when the dishes had been washed and the floor swept, but more often she ate in her room. Grace lived in a room next to the garage, just across a courtyard shaded by a leafy quince tree. The room was small, containing a dresser, two wooden kitchen chairs, some clothes suspended on a cord below the ceiling and a narrow bed covered with a brightly striped blanket.
“Grace seemed always to have been there. A presence in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the big rooms of the house.”
Grace worked in our house for six days of the week. On Sundays we went into the city for a meal at the Zoo Lake Restaurant, where the waiters wore white gloves and jackets. I do not know what Grace did on her days off.
That year there was rugby and cricket at school, the first records of the Beatles, learning to dance the Twist, and a girl named Janis Meyer who kissed me at a birthday party. And there was also the shooting by the police of unarmed women at Sharpeville, the Suppression of Communism Act, the banning of the ANC, a bomb at the Johannesburg train station.
One day I saw two boys about my own age sitting in the courtyard outside Grace’s room. “There are two piccanins in the yard,” I told my mother.
“I know. They are Grace’s children.”
“Her children? What do you mean?”
For a moment I thought that Grace had kept the two boys hidden in her room all this time.
“Go and talk to them,” my mother said.
The boys were dressed alike, in clean but faded shorts and shirts, both barefoot.
“Hello,” I said. “Where do you live?”
“Ezulweni,” the older boy answered.
“Where is that?”
He waved his arm in a vague manner.
“Do you like soccer?” I tried to think of the names of some black soccer teams. “Orlando Swallows? Kaiser Chiefs?”
The boys frowned. It was obvious that they had never heard of these teams. Ezulweni must be far away.
Then Grace appeared from her room and broke into a smile when she saw me. “These are my boys, Baas Lewis. This is Walter and this is Nelson.”
That evening I looked at Grace in a new way as she served dinner. How was it possible that she had children? Where did they actually live? Where was their father? Who looked after them? Why had I not seen them before? It was as if Grace didn’t belong to us anymore, to our family, but had secrets and another life. I asked my mother why Grace’s children didn’t live with her. Because the government wouldn’t allow it, she told me. Because Grace was black and we were white.
Soon after, our family moved to Canada. We left Grace behind. She had been a part of the family but now I no longer knew what her
“Was her name even Grace? Or was that just a convenience, easier for us to pronounce than a Zulu or Xhosa name?”
My mother, my two brothers and I, and a woman who might be Grace. Durban, South Africa, circa 1956.
part had been. She was a servant, yes, taken for granted, yes, but also treated with affection born out of long familiarity. But how little we knew of her. Was her name even Grace? Or was that just a convenience, easier for us to pronounce than a Zulu or Xhosa name?
Memory fades, but our sins are written on the heart, and remain inscribed there forever. Does Grace remember me? Does she recall my name? I do not know who Grace was or where she is now. And she knows nothing of me. Grace: Surname unknown.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my wife, Gunilla Josephson, for her love, her understanding, and her inspiration.
Thanks to my agent, Hilary McMahon, for her early support and encouragement.
Special thanks are due to Phyllis Bruce for her perceptive reading of the manuscript, her wise suggestions, and for finding the title in the text.
In its early stages the writing of this book was supported by grants from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
About the Author
LEWIS DESOTO was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After moving to Canada, he attended the University of British Columbia, where he received a Master of Fine Arts. His writing has been published in numerous literary journals, and h
e was awarded the Books in Canada Writers’ Union Short Prose Award. A past editor of The Literary Review of Canada, Lewis DeSoto lives in Toronto and Normandy.
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Praise for A Blade of Grass
“A Blade of Grass is a novel of the earth…Haunting, intimate [and] compelling.”
—Quill & Quire
“[The author] writes evocatively…about a wild and natural country that seems both authentic and tragic.”
—The Globe and Mail
“A significant work of post-colonial literature. A gripping read…that effortlessly places the reader within the pulsating landscape…of South Africa.”
—The Gazette (Montreal)
“[The novel] is typical of the painterly delicacy of DeSoto’s prose. [His] descriptions of farm life are timeless…and compelling. A Blade of Grass is a bleak, vivid novel…where black and white are anything but.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“A powerful and compassionate story of belonging and betrayal, A Blade of Grass is rich in detail and unflinching in its treatment of apartheid.”
—Helen Humphreys
“Part historical fiction, part war-survival story, [A Blade of Grass] is above all an intimate drama of two young South African women…in search of home. DeSoto evokes the elemental landscape with lyrical simplicity.”
—Booklist
“DeSoto explores the psychological complexity of friendship with absolute authenticity…and the richness of character is matched by the exquisite landscape of Africa.”
—Catherine Gildiner
“A Blade of Grass unfolds cascading tragedies…in language [that] is captivating.”
—National Post
“DeSoto writes lyrically about the African countryside, and delicately reveals the nuances of interracial sexual attraction.”
—The New York Times
“A splendid first novel…DeSoto is a dynamic new voice on the literary scene.”
—Robert Olen Butler
“DeSoto’s…masterly grasp of the language and the craft of fiction…makes this novel linger in the senses.”
—Gary Geddes
Copyright
A Blade of Grass
© 2003 by Lewis DeSoto.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40295-8
A Phyllis Bruce Book, published by HarperPerennialCanada, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
First published in hardcover by Phyllis Bruce Books and HarperFlamingoCanada, imprints of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003. This paperback edition 2004.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
www.harpercollins.ca
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
DeSoto, Lewis
A blade of grass / Lewis DeSoto.–
1st HarperPerennialCanada ed.
“A Phyllis Bruce book”.
I. Title.
PS8557.E84075B53 2004 C813´.6 C2004-900350-X
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