A Blade of Grass (12 page)

T
HE HOUSE STANDS SILENT
through the afternoon and into the night. Long after darkness has fallen a single light flicks on in the kitchen, but no movement is visible. The house stands silent, as if abandoned.

In the kraal, across that unbridgeable distance that separates house and huts, there is a different kind of silence—the low murmurs of gloom, of worry, of fear for the future.

The matter of the death of Baas Ben is the only topic of conversation. This death, and the manner of its coming and its meaning for the future, is being discussed all across the district, in the farms and the town, in the hotel and in the houses, and especially here in the kraal on the farm called Kudufontein.

There has been no work on the farm this day. Joshua, the headman, has known without being instructed that there must be no work today. Those who look to the single light burning in the kitchen window of the house have tribulation in their hearts. What will become of the farm, of their work, of their lives? Everything can change now.

They have watched the coming and going of the cars, have heard the voices talking, have seen the men standing on the veranda. And when Joshua walked to the house, hat in hand, to offer the condolences of those who live and work on this land, the men turned hard faces to him and sent him away.

Nobody stirs from the kraal. The cattle go untended, the soil is not tilled, the crops are not watered. When the cars have gone, and the women in their Sunday dresses, and the men in their dark suits, and the
Predikant, tall in his black hat, only then does something of the weight lift from the kraal.

Shadows lengthen, twilight falls, night and gloom descend. In the kraal they light fires and cook the evening meal and talk in low voices. And they watch and listen for a sign from the house.

Where is the Missus? they ask. Why is there not wailing and lamentations? Does she sit in the darkness, alone with the spirit of her dead husband?

Tembi watches too, and wonders. Joshua, the headman, says to Tembi, “You must go there, up to the house. You must see what she is doing.”

“I cannot.” Tembi shakes her head. He does not know why she cannot, and she will never tell him, but she cannot go to Märit. Even though Märit has lost her husband, Tembi cannot go to her, because her face still burns with shame where she has been slapped, and her heart is hard against Märit.

“You must go to her,” Joshua insists. “You must tell her that we are sorry for Baas Ben, and you must tell her that we are sorry for her. And you must ask her what will become of the farm.”

Like the white farmers and their wives, he too doubts that Märit can run the farm now. He too knows that she is weak, alone, without a man. Without a man, a woman like her cannot run a farm.

“You must go to her,” Joshua says. “Is not your work in the house? You must cook for her and not let her sit alone in the darkness.”

Tembi shakes her head. “No, I will not go there.”

“Yes,” Joshua says, and then a sly look shows in his eyes, and he speaks louder, so that the others around the fire pit may hear as well. “Doesn’t she favor you, doesn’t she take you away from your place with the other young women and make you her favorite? Your life is easy in that house, your work is nothing compared to ours. This is so. She favors you, and you must go to her now and tell her we are sorry for the Baas and you must ask her what she will do with this farm.”

Again Tembi shakes her head. “No, I cannot go there. She does not favor me.”

“She favors you. Did she not send you a gift? Did she not send you a blue bracelet with that little child? She favors you.”

“No,” Tembi says.

Losing patience, Joshua grasps Tembi by the arm and pulls her away from the fire. He pushes her away from the circle of light. “Do what I tell you. Go there! Go and talk to her.”

Because Tembi has no mother and no father to say otherwise against the authority of Joshua, she leaves the kraal and walks into the darkness where the night crickets sing. She stops some distance from the house and looks at the square of light that burns in the window. She stands between the kraal and the house, alone in the night, belonging to neither the house nor the kraal. Tilting her head she looks up to the stars, so many of them crowded together, like houses, each burning its own lamp in the darkness. Tembi has heard people say that when a person dies her soul becomes a star in the heavens. Perhaps that is why there are so many. Is her mother, Grace, there too, holding a candle of light against the darkness? Is Baas Ben there too now? Or do they only lie in the deep soil, without light forever?

I cannot go to the house, she thinks, as she looks again at the single illuminated window. Märit has banished me. She has struck my face and banished me, so that I had to skulk through the trees to my hut, shamed and naked, creeping like a jackal.

Yet I cannot go to the kraal either, for they have sent me out into the night. Where can I go? There is only my garden, hidden behind the thorns and the rocks, but I cannot go there either. How can I sleep where the wild animals hunt at night?

She thinks of Märit alone in the house, alone in grief, and pity touches her heart. She knows what it is to be alone in grief and have to sit with the knowledge of death. She thinks, If Märit would appear at the window now, and see me, and forgive me, and beckon me to come to the house, then I would go.

Tembi looks at the stars, sparkling with blue light, and she remembers the bracelet that Märit sent, that is now tucked away into a little box in her hut with her few precious things. Pity is in her heart, and forgiveness, so she walks forward along the path and ascends the back steps and presses her ear softly to the door, holding her breath.

She turns the handle, swings the door open, puts her head in, and whispers, softly, afraid to break the silence. “Missus? Märit? It’s Tembi.”

No answer comes and she swings the door wider, stepping into the house, because this is the only place she can go on this dark night. The dim bulb burns in the ceiling, casting a yellowish light on the table and counter. The rest of the house is dark and silent. Tembi steps forward, then looks down and screams.

Märit’s body is slumped across the floor by the sink, her dress pulled up to her waist, a smear of red across her mouth and across the pale skin of her thighs.

Tembi screams and falls against the door, then stumbles back into the night. Her first thought is that those who killed Baas Ben have come back and murdered Märit. She runs for the shelter of the trees and cowers in the darkness, too afraid to move, too afraid to run to the kraal and call for help. She cowers and stares at the lighted doorway.

The night, which has fallen silent at her scream, slowly comes to life again—the crickets resume their chirping, the frogs croak down by the river. A glimmer of firelight shows from the kraal.

Tembi waits, her eyes fixed on the splash of light coming from the open doorway, and the night goes on about its business, unconcerned; the crickets chirp and the stars move on their slow passage through the heavens. And when there is no movement from the kitchen, she thinks, Perhaps there has been no murder, and nobody is hiding in the house. Then another thought occurs to her, a thought almost as terrible as murder—maybe Märit in her grief has taken her own life.

Gathering her courage, Tembi leaves her hiding place and slowly climbs the back steps, and peers in through the door at the body on the floor. Fear and nausea rise in her mouth, sour on her tongue, and she bites her lips against it as she crouches down to touch the body gingerly with the tip of one extended finger. And then Märit groans.

“Aah!” Tembi falls back on her haunches in alarm, jerking her hand away.

A groan escapes from Märit’s red-smeared mouth.

“Märit! Märit, are you hurt?”

“Tembi,” she murmurs, and her breath is strong with the reek of liquor. Märit moans softly and turns on her side and opens her eyes.

“Tembi. You are the only one left,” she says with a strange bitterness in her voice. She shuts her eyes again.

Tembi strokes Märit’s face. “What has happened to you, Märit? What happened?” She strokes Märit’s face and her fingers come away coated with a dark, sticky fluid. “You are bleeding, Märit.” Then Tembi’s eyes fall upon the half-empty can of beans on the floor, and she touches her finger to her lips, tasting the sticky bean sauce.

“Märit, you are not hurt?”

Märit retches and coughs. “I’m sorry, Tembi.” Her voice is slurred, tired.

“You are not hurt, but I think you are drunk.”

Märit mumbles something indistinguishable.

“You mustn’t lie here, Märit. You are on the floor. It’s not good. Come, you must get up.”

Slipping one arm beneath Märit’s shoulders Tembi raises her from the floor, with the other hand pulling the dress down over her thighs.

She struggles to get Märit to sit up, then urges her to stand. “Come, you can lie down in bed. Come now.” Märit’s hair is matted and smells of stale tobacco smoke.

They stumble along the corridor and into the coolness of the bedroom, where Tembi lets Märit subside onto the bed. She switches on the bedside lamp, and Märit groans, shielding her eyes against the glare.

“I feel sick, Tembi.”

“Yes. I know.” Although Tembi has never been drunk in her life she has seen drunkenness, sometimes when the men drink too much of the home-brewed beer, and how after the laughter and the loud voices and the falling down they become slack in their bodies, and speak in this same slurred weary tone, and wake up with the sickness on them.

She fetches a basin from the kitchen and fills it with warm water in the bathroom, and gathers a washcloth, then sits next to Märit on the bed, gently wiping away the smears of sauce, cleaning Märit’s face.

Märit sighs, sighs like a child as the cool cloth moves over her face. She puts up her hand and lets it rest on Tembi’s, pressing it against her forehead, and her eyes open with a sudden expression of clarity in them.

“You must forgive me, Tembi,” she says clearly. “I didn’t mean it.”

Tembi nods. “Yes.”

“Say it. You mustn’t hate me. Tell me.”

“I don’t hate you. I forgive you, Märit.”

Märit smiles, and then the veil falls over her eyes again and she closes them and seems to fall into sleep. Tembi rinses the cloth and smoothes it over Märit’s face.

Then, as if ministering to an invalid, she unclasps the catch on Märit’s dress and removes it and then her underwear. She unfastens Märit’s brassiere and tosses it onto the chair. She rinses the cloth in the basin of warm water and wipes away the smears on Märit’s thighs, cleaning her, cleaning her the way one would minister to a child.

And when she is finished she rises and takes up the basin and stands a moment looking down at the naked woman in the lamplight. The sight is strange to her; she has never seen a white woman naked. The pale skin, the smallish breasts, the pubic bush that is the same chestnut color as Märit’s hair. Despite the differences in the color of the skin, and the color of the hair, and in the different curves of the body, Tembi sees only a woman. Only a woman, she thinks. Like me.

She pulls the sheet over Märit and then empties the wash basin in the bathtub.

“Sleep,” she whispers. She feels so tired herself. She will go back to the kraal, and she will tell them only that the Missus is asleep, and that there is nothing to be said about the future and about what will become of the farm. She is tired now and wants to sleep herself.

As Tembi bends to turn off the lamp, Märit opens her eyes and says, “Don’t leave me alone. Lie down next to me. I’m afraid.”

Pity and tenderness are in Tembi’s heart. She turns off the lamp and stretches out on the sheet, and Märit curls herself against Tembi’s back, molding herself against Tembi’s back in the way that a child clings to her mother, and she murmurs with the plaintive voice of a child, “You are the only one left, Tembi.”

A
BELL RINGS
, strident, insistent, and Tembi jerks upright, startled out of sleep by the persistent ringing. For a moment she does not know where she is, this unfamiliar light in this unfamiliar room—and this stranger lying curled up next to her. The bell continues to ring. The telephone, she realizes—such a strange sound to hear in the morning, for never has she woken to this sound; there are no telephones in the kraal.

Slipping from the bed she hurries along the passage to where the black telephone sits on a small table. She has never spoken before on a telephone, although there have been times when she was in the house, when she was in the kitchen with her mother, and the phone rang, and Grace would go to answer the summons.

She stares at the phone—how sinister it seems, with a life of its own. Tembi tries to cover the telephone with both hands, to still its noise, but the urgent, repetitive bell insists. She lifts the receiver, and the noise ceases immediately.

A small voice is speaking. Tembi presses the receiver against her ear.

“Märit?” the voice says. “Märit, is that you? It’s Connie van Staden. Hello?”

“Hello,” Tembi answers softly.

“Who is that? Märit?”

“This is Tembi.”

“Who are you? Are you the
meid
?”

“Yes.”

“Let me speak to the Missus.”

“The Missus is sleeping. She is very tired.”

“Oh. Is everything all right there? Is your Missus all right?”

“Yes, she is all right.”

“Well, don’t wake her. Tell the Missus that I called. Connie van Staden. Can you remember to do that?”

“Yes, I can remember.”

“Don’t forget. Make sure you tell the Missus that Connie telephoned.”

“Yes.”

With a click the voice disappears abruptly. Tembi listens a moment longer, and it seems to her that she hears a sound like the wind, a whisper of voices in the wires that run on poles alongside the roads, voices whispering to each other.

Märit sleeps still, undisturbed by the noise of the phone, curled into herself with the sheet pulled over her head.

In the kitchen Tembi cleans out the cold ashes from the stove and sets new kindling and fresh coal. She puts away the leftover dishes of food that were brought by the neighboring women. She fills the kettle for tea, and sprinkles a handful of maize meal into a pot of water for porridge. This is her job. It is her job to cook and clean in the house. While the water boils she puts away the gin and cordial bottles and empties the overflowing ashtrays and opens the windows to let out the stale cigarette smoke.

When she brings the breakfast tray into the bedroom, Märit is still asleep, her head turned away from the beam of sunlight coming through the window. Her tangled hair frames a face that is pale, thin, a deep frown creasing her brow. Tembi sets the tray next to the bed and draws the curtain across the window, softening the light. She decides not to wake Märit. Better to sleep. Whatever pain is in Märit’s dreams will be less than waking to know her husband is dead and that her life is now something other than what it was before.

O
N THE FARM
, work has resumed. Joshua has set the usual routines in motion, for the life of a farm cannot stop too long for grief. The cows must be milked, the weeds in the vegetable beds must be kept down, the cattle must be herded to pasture by the small boys, the watering of the crops must continue. The sun does not cease to move across the sky
because of a death. Death is something that happens, a small pause in the turning of the wheel.

Joshua contrives to keep the house in sight throughout the morning; he finds tasks that will allow him to continually have a view of the doors. And when he sees Tembi appear from the kitchen door he hails her, gesturing with his arm for her to come to him.

“Did you speak to the Missus? What does she say?”

“She is sleeping still.”

He looks up at the sun, already high above the land, and shakes his head disapprovingly. “She must talk to us. Now this farm is in her hands. Everybody is waiting to know what she thinks.” He turns away and stands with his hands on his hips, surveying the farm. An idea is forming in his mind. He knows that Märit cannot run the farm—he can do it himself, even better than Baas Ben did. Does he not do it now? But for this he needs Märit to be the one who stands at the head of the farm, who negotiates in those matters where he has no authority.

“You must stay with her,” he tells Tembi. “You must look after her, and when she wakes you can tell her that everything on the farm is good. You can tell her that Joshua is making sure of everything. And then you must come and tell me, so that I can speak to her.”

Tembi nods.

“Go back to the house. It’s better that you speak to her when she wakes. Tell her that the farm is good and she can stay here now and that I will run the farm for her. Go now.”

Märit still sleeps, but the deep frown is not on her face any longer, there is a calmness there now, still pale, still drawn, but whatever dream had furrowed her brow is gone and she rests.

Tembi does not wake her, but takes the breakfast tray away and closes the bedroom door gently and goes through to the living room. She switches on the radio, and although the dial lights up there is only static on the whole wavelength. She takes down one of the books from the shelf, any book at random, and settles herself onto the comfortable couch with the breakfast tray.

The hours pass. Every now and then Tembi gets up and looks in on Märit. Märit sleeps—deep in the sleep that protects her. Tembi does not
prepare any lunch for Märit, but eats instead by herself in the kitchen—bread and jam and cheese. She makes more tea and returns to the living room, to the comfortable chair and the books.

The sound of a car outside the house brings Tembi out of the places in the books. From the window she sees that it is the small white car that belongs to the Missus from the next farm, the same woman who telephoned earlier. Tembi has seen Connie van Staden before, visiting, sometimes with her husband, and she saw her as one of the last to leave when all the people came to the house after the burial of Baas Ben.

When Tembi sees her step from the car, a sudden impulse strikes her and she acts without thinking, without wondering why she does what she does next, or even what the consequences might be.

A few quick steps take her to the front door, where she turns the key in the lock, then she rushes to the bedroom and closes the door there, then runs down the corridor to the kitchen, and from the outside locks the door, pocketing the key.

On silent feet she creeps around the side of the house and pauses behind the hydrangea bushes, where she can be unobserved but still see the woman.

Connie van Staden has brought something in a basket, which she takes from the back seat of the car. She hooks the basket over her forearm and glances up at the house. And Tembi studies her, seeing a sturdy, capable woman who looks at the world with confidence, who can manage the world, who knows what is necessary.

Connie mounts the steps of the veranda and knocks on the door.

Tembi steps from the side of the house and stands at the foot of the stairs, and as Connie raises her hand to knock again, Tembi clears her throat to make herself known. Connie spins, startled.

“Who are you? I didn’t see you standing there.”

“I am Tembi, Missus.”

“Are you the one I spoke to on the phone? Are you the
meid
?”

“Yes, Missus.”

Connie nods, dismissing Tembi from her attention. Shifting the weight of the basket on her arm she taps at the door again, then tries the handle, frowning when she finds the door is locked.

“Where is Mevrou Laurens?” she says to Tembi. “Isn’t your Missus home?”

Tembi shakes her head. “She is not here.”

“No? Do you know where she has gone?”

Tembi makes a vague gesture. “She has gone to walk on the farm.”

“For a walk?” Connie says, looking beyond Tembi, a tone of disbelief in her voice. Then Connie moves along the veranda and peers in through the window.

And if Märit should appear now, Tembi wonders, if she should appear and open the door and Connie should say, Your
meid
told me you were not here—then what will happen? Tembi does not know why she has lied, why she has locked the door and pretended that Märit is not in the house. Is it to protect the grieving woman, to let her sleep away her grief? Or is it to keep Märit to herself, to keep her away from her neighbors? Tembi does not want the world to come into the house, neither the town nor the kraal. She wants the house to contain only Märit and herself.

Connie descends the steps. “Which way did Mevrou Laurens go?”

“I do not know, Missus. That way.” Her gesture encompasses all possible directions.

Connie now sets her basket on the ground and fixes Tembi with an intent look. She seems to contemplate whether all is as it should be—the habitual mistrust of mistress and servant—then her face changes, she relents, and says, “Is the Missus all right?”

“Yes.”

“You know what has happened. The Baas is dead. But is she all right? Is she very upset?”

“Yes, she is sad.”

“But is she very upset? Does she weep? Does she eat? Is she herself? She hasn’t gone off to do something silly, has she?” Connie gazes in the direction of the koppie.

Tembi says, “No, she is sad, but she is herself.”

“Well, that’s good, then. That’s as it should be. Are you looking after her? You must, because this is a difficult time for your Missus. Very difficult.”

“I am looking after her.”

“Good. And the farmworkers, they are not using this as an excuse to be lazy, are they?” She is suddenly stern. “If there is any laziness or shirking, then my Koos will be round to set matters right. If anybody tries to take advantage, there will be trouble for them. Do you understand that?”

Tembi nods.

“Yes, well.” Connie looks down, noticing the basket at her feet. “I’ve brought some things. A casserole, some peach brandy. You can warm up the casserole for her dinner.” She lifts the basket. “We’ll take this through to the kitchen now.”

Tembi shakes her head. “I have no key to the house. It is locked.” She reaches for the basket. “I will give this to the Missus when she comes back.”

Connie hesitates a moment, then lets the basket go. “Don’t you take anything from it. And be sure to tell the Missus that I was here. And tell her to telephone me. Mevrou van Staden. Connie. Can you remember that?”

“I can remember. I will tell her.”

Connie gets back into her car, and Tembi sits on the veranda steps with the basket next to her as the car drives off. She waves when Connie looks back. She sits there until the car is out of sight, and the dust plumes rise from beyond the trees, moving away with the passage of the car. She sits there until the dust settles again and the air is clear in the distance and the sound of the car has faded away. Then she takes the basket, walks around to the back door, and goes into the house.

The casserole that Connie has brought is a stew of potato and carrots and chunks of beef. There are thick scones wrapped in a cloth, still warm to the touch, a small jar of apricot jam, and the peach brandy, homemade, in a bottle without a label.

Tembi stokes up the fire in the stove and transfers the stew to a pot. She butters the scones and spreads them with jam, then makes tea and pours a measure of brandy into the cup.

Märit is awake when Tembi brings in the tray. She is sitting up in bed, wearing a nightgown and a black knitted shawl draped across her shoulders. Her long hair is a disarray of tangles.

“I thought I smelled food. Have you been cooking? Did you make this for me?” Märit looks up at Tembi, her eyes sunken and ringed with black.

“The other Missus was here. Connie. She brought you this food.”

“Connie van Staden? I didn’t hear her. What did you tell her?”

“That you were sleeping. She will come back.”

Märit falls silent, slowly lifting spoonfuls of the stew to her mouth. Then she looks up and says, “But you must eat too. Where is yours? Bring a plate in, Tembi, and eat with me.”

They sit together in silence, Tembi perched on the edge of the bed. When Märit is finished she puts the plate aside and drinks her tea, then sighs and closes her eyes and lies back against the pillows.

After a while, without opening her eyes, Märit says, “What am I going to do, Tembi? I don’t know how to live now. The farm, the workers, you, everything. What am I supposed to do?” Her voice quavers. “I don’t know anything about running this farm.”

“You can go on like before. But you will be the Missus of the farm now.”

“Alone?” Märit opens her eyes. “How can I manage this farm on my own? Without anybody?” She imagines the long days in the now-empty house, and the long hours of the night, and no end to it. Ben is gone. The thought is terrible to her.

“No, you can. If you want to. I can help you.”

“You are kind, Tembi. Kinder than I deserve. But I don’t know. Maybe I should go back to the city.”

“If you want to.”

“I don’t know what I want.” She puts her cup aside. “Everything is broken. I don’t know what I want.” She runs her hand through her hair, clutching at it, and closes her eyes again. She sees in her mind the somber gathering at the church, the black suits, the smell of perspiration and perfume. Ben is gone. Her body trembles with the knowledge. Yesterday it was possible to live, even the funeral was possible to endure, because there was a purpose in her actions and a reason. But today there is no reason and no purpose, and tomorrow, and the days after that. They have no reason or purpose.

Tembi gets up to clear away the lunch tray.

“Tembi?” Märit says in a small, hesitant voice.

“Yes.”

“Would you like to come and live in the house? Here, with me. You can move into the other bedroom. It can be yours.” Märit lies motionless, almost rigid, not opening her eyes.

Tembi sets the tray down on the edge of the bed; the pity and the tenderness are in her heart as she looks down at Märit.

“We can share,” Märit says, still with her eyes closed. Her voice quavers with an appeal, with an appeal to hope. “We can share the house.”