A Blade of Grass (21 page)

“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 terror 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.

K
OOS VAN
S
TADEN
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.”

I
N 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.”

Märit and Tembi try to explain the farm to Michael, but they are not sure how much he understands—sometimes his expression is attentive, at other times he just smiles. Märit gathers the hoe and garden fork from outside the kitchen door and leads the way to the vegetable garden. Weeds seem to spring up overnight between the rows, and if left to grow will quickly steal the moisture from the plants.

Märit frowns at the trampled tomato plants and does her best to straighten them, then hands a long-handled hoe to Michael. “Do you know how to weed? Like this.” She digs lightly between the plants to uproot the weeds, bending every now and then to toss them to one side. “You have to make sure you get the root out. But the small plants only, not the vegetables, okay? Like so.”

His smile and his constant nodding is foolish, and she wonders how much he understands.

“Try it, Michael,” Tembi urges.

He sets to work eagerly, moving between the plants.

“He can do it,” Tembi says.

“Yes, very good, Michael. That’s the way. Carry on like that. We will be just over there, in the mealie patch.”

Tembi and Märit work at clearing one of the irrigation ditches that has silted up where the channel has collapsed. When this is finished, and the water runs free again, Märit goes to check on Michael.

She finds him digging energetically at the spinach plants with the hoe.

“No, no, Michael! Not like that.” She shows him again. “Just the small weeds between the vegetables.” When he shows no comprehension, Märit sets down her own hoe and places her hands over his and demonstrates the gentle motion he must make. She feels the roughness of his skin, like the bark of a tree, and she looks down at his calloused feet, and
she wonders what his life has been, and where he has come from like this, out of nowhere.

When Michael seems to have grasped the idea of how the weeding should be done, Märit picks up her own hoe and walks back to the mealie patch. As she turns back to look at him she sees that he has already discarded the hoe and is squatting on the ground with his music box in his lap. The strange repetitive music begins its rhythm.

Tembi looks up when Märit rejoins her. “Is he all right?”

Märit shrugs helplessly. “He is like a child.”

“But I am glad he is here. He is harmless.”

Throughout the morning he sits near the women as they work, sometimes playing his strange music, and sometimes just sitting contentedly in the sun, like a cat, his face upturned to the light.

T
HE MIDDAY MEAL
is taken on the veranda, out of the direct sun. Michael sits on the steps, and when the two women talk he looks at their faces, but if they address him he only smiles.

After eating, Michael wanders off, but his hoe is lying on the ground still, so Märit does not worry that he might do further damage in the vegetable garden. She dozes a little bit. When she opens her eyes she watches lazily as a couple of chickens peck for worms in the freshly turned soil of the garden. Their clucking is subdued and has a gentle, soothing cadence.

Then she shakes herself awake and sits upright. “The chickens,” she says, nudging the dozing Tembi with her foot. “The chickens are loose.”

They leave the shade of the veranda and walk slowly towards the coop. “Maybe Michael let them out,” Tembi says as they notice more chickens wandering around. There is no urgency in the women’s motions, since the chickens are kept penned more for convenience than anything else, and to herd them together now is a diversion from the gardening.

The sudden alarmed crowing of Dik-Dik breaks the stillness of the afternoon, followed by the thudding of feet on the ground. The chickens scatter as the rooster appears, squawking wildly with wings outstretched. And in pursuit is Michael, brandishing a hoe in one hand.

“Michael!” Märit cries, breaking into a run. “Michael, stop. No!”

Dik-Dik is darting from side to side, wings flapping, trying to evade the pursuing man. Then Michael drops the hoe and lunges at the bird. Märit watches in horror as the rooster tries to fly into the safety of a low tree, but too late, for Michael is quick, and grabs Dik-Dik into his rough hands.

“Leave him alone, Michael!” Märit shouts over the alarmed cries of the rooster.

By the time she reaches Michael the rooster has ceased his squawking and is limp in the man’s arms.

“Oh, Michael, what have you done?”

He has the bird cradled in his arms, one forefinger stroking the feathers along the underside of its neck. Dik-Dik opens one eye and regards Märit with his beady stare, then shuts it again, stretching out his neck like a cat. Dik-Dik is unhurt. Märit is astonished to see the fierce rooster so passive in the man’s arms.

In his throat he makes a soft clucking noise, the way a chicken does when it sits on its perch, contented, and the rooster stretches out his neck and answers with the same soft clucking, content, like a pet in the man’s arms.

“Dik-Dik likes you,” Tembi says. “He is your friend. Looking after the chickens can be Michael’s job, don’t you think, Märit?”

“Would you like to do that, Michael? You can feed them and make sure they stay in the coop. Come, I’ll show you where the grain is kept. But first we have to make sure that all the chickens go back into the pen.”

The two women herd the chickens together and steer them in the direction of the coop. Michael watches, then sets the rooster down and joins in, crouching low and moving with his arms widespread, making a deep clucking noise. And wherever Michael moves, Dik-Dik follows behind.

When the chickens are back in the pen, Märit lifts the lid off the feed bin and beckons to Michael. “This is where the food for the chickens is kept, Michael. You can fill this pail and sprinkle it out on the ground for them. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Can you do that?”

He nods and plunges his hands into the bin of grain, coming up with two fistfuls, then he squats down and holds out his hands to the chickens. Dik-Dik is there first, spreading his wings to keep the hens at bay, pecking quickly at the grain in Michael’s palm. Only after he has had his fill
does he allow the hens to approach. As Märit crouches next to Michael, Dik-Dik flares his wings at her, darting for her ankles with his beak, so that she has to retreat.

“He just doesn’t like me,” she says.

“He’s jealous,” Tembi replies.

W
HEN IT IS TIME
for the evening meal, Tembi goes to fetch Michael. She finds him sitting outside the chicken coop, his musical instrument in his hand, the strange music filling the air. The hens peck and scrabble in the dirt near him, and every now and then they pause and cock their heads to one side, as if listening.

He is more at home with the chickens than with us, Tembi thinks. And she wonders what terrible thing in his past has set him to wander alone on the veldt with only a musical instrument made from a tin can.

“Time for supper, Michael. You can come to the house now and eat.”

He reaches into the pocket of his coat and withdraws a battered alarm clock, holding it up for her to see.

“Yes, it’s supper time,” Tembi says. “Come to the house now.”

Märit has set three places at the table and is serving a vegetable stew into bowls.

“You can sit there, Michael,” she says, indicating a chair. But Michael takes his spoon and the bowl of food and walks back out to the veranda. The two women look at each other and shake their heads. Märit slices some bread and puts it on a plate, then carries it out to the veranda.

“Michael, you can eat with us in the kitchen. You don’t have to sit out here.”

He looks up at her but does not stir. She shrugs and sets the plate of bread down next to him. “It doesn’t really matter. You can eat out here.”

L
ATER
, when the women are washing the dishes, Märit says, “Where will he sleep tonight?”

“I could make up a bed for him in the living room.”

Märit sets aside the plate she is washing and dries her hands on her
apron. The way she bites at her lower lip betrays her thoughts to Tembi.

“You don’t really want him in the house, do you?”