A Blade of Grass (28 page)

A
LL MORNING
Märit listens. Is he out there hunting? She has not heard any shots. Perhaps he will not come back. Perhaps she has seen the last of him. Now that he has his gun, he can run off and join whatever ragtag army he can find.

She feels vaguely disappointed by this notion, in a way that she cannot quite reconcile with her feelings of hostility towards Khoza. After all, she wants him to be gone. Yet she feels a little abandoned, suddenly aware of how much impact his presence has.

Is it because he is a man, and they are women? she wonders. A man on a farm seems natural, but she doesn’t want a man here. The farm belongs to her, her and Tembi.

“Where is Khoza?” she hears Tembi call.

“Why does it matter to you where he is?” Märit answers, without being able to keep an edge of resentment from her voice. She knows why she speaks this way, even though she would deny it. It is because Tembi has put her hand on the gleaming skin of the naked man, and because she has asked after him.

“Why should it not matter?” Tembi says, giving Märit a puzzled look.

“He’s gone.”

“You sent him away? Why did you do that? Is this farm not big enough for the three of us?”

“Why are you so quick to take sides against me now, Tembi?”

“You don’t like him. You show it.”

“It’s quite obvious how much
you
like him.”

Their eyes meet, and that secret knowledge is there again between them. Märit sees a flicker of hostility in Tembi’s eyes.

“I didn’t send him away. He went off by himself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He asked for the gun, to go hunting. I gave it to him and he went into the veldt.”

Tembi turns and scans the distance. She gives Märit a distrustful look. “Where? Why did you let him go alone?”

“He said he was going to hunt and bring us some meat. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t come back. Now he has his gun, what is there here for him?”

“He will come back.”

“For you? Is that what you hope?”

“Because there is no other place for him.”

“What do you know about him? Has he told you anything about himself?”

“He doesn’t like it if you ask him questions. He doesn’t tell you things if you ask him.”

“Do you trust him? I know you like him, but do you trust him?” Märit softens her voice. “Tell me honestly.”

Tembi shrugs and chews on her thumbnail. “I don’t know…He is nice…I think he is good. Maybe he doesn’t tell us about himself because he is ashamed. Maybe he has come here because he was frightened…you know, with the war out there. He can’t tell us he is frightened because we are women and he is a man. It is shameful for a man to ask women for shelter.” She nods. “He is lost in himself. I think that is why he is here.”

“Oh, Tembi. I worry about what will happen between us now, if he stays on the farm. It won’t be the same. I worry that he is the kind of man who will not be satisfied until he has power over you and me. And now he has the gun. Guns always give men some illusion of power. They want to use it. I worry that he will use you, that he will be against me, and against the farm. He wants this farm.”

Tembi ponders this, her brow wrinkling, looking at Märit with a certain
distrust. Then she gives a decisive shake of her head. “No, Khoza is not like that.”

“I know you like him,” Märit continues. “Do you want him to come back?”

She sees a kind of longing in Tembi’s expression, a hope. “Maybe you are falling in love with him. Just a bit. Hmm?”

Tembi turns away, offended.

A thought occurs to Märit and she says, “You haven’t been with him, have you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you sleep in your own bed last night?”

Tembi swings around, her face angry. “Is it for you to ask me that? Maybe you are the one that wants him. I saw how you looked at him yesterday. I am not just a stupid girl. You want him too. Just like you want everything. This farm, this country. You want to be the boss of Khoza. And of me. Maybe you want
me
to leave the farm!”

“That’s not true! Who has put these ideas in your head?”

Tembi moves away from Märit, hunching her shoulders. “You can’t be the boss of anything anymore. Nobody has to ask you for anything on this farm. You are just one person, like Khoza, like me. If he wants to stay here then he can stay. And if you want to go, then you can go.”

Märit hears in Tembi’s words a denial of everything they have both struggled for. She has given up so much already, but it is not enough. There will be more to give up. Perhaps she will have to give up everything.

“Tembi, this is not the way for us to speak to each other. After everything that’s happened, this is the wrong path for us. I’m sorry if I doubted you. We have to remain friends. Whatever happens.” Märit reaches across and takes Tembi’s hand in her own. “If Khoza returns, we must not let him come between us. Promise me that.”

“I don’t know…we were better friends before. Now…I don’t know.” She shakes her head slowly and looks out over the veldt. “Maybe he won’t come back, then.” Her voice trembles slightly, betraying two conflicting hopes.

A shot echoes across the veldt. The doves in the bluegum trees take flight.

“Where did it come from?” Tembi asks eagerly, almost with relief. She pulls her hand loose from Märit’s clasp and moves away a few steps. “Do you see him?”

A second shot sounds from near the koppie. The doves wheel and flutter. The women hear a shout, a distant cry of triumph.

Tembi starts forward towards the voice, shading her eyes against the sun.

Märit lets her go. The moment is lost, the outcome is undecided.

The silhouette of Khoza appears on the koppie. He raises one arm, brandishing the rifle, and hails the women. The hunter, victorious.

Märit follows Tembi, slowly, walking towards something that she knows will bring no joy in the end. But she walks in that direction nevertheless, because there is nowhere else to go.

T
HE LIMP CARCASS
lies in the dust at the foot of the stairs behind the kitchen door. A young
rooibok
, tawny, sleek, almost as if sleeping with its long-lashed eyes shut. Except for the red stain on the white fur at its neck, and the dried blood on the muzzle where a fly crawls.

Märit kneels and brushes away the fly.

“Now there will be a feast tonight,” Khoza proclaims proudly, standing with the shotgun draped across his shoulders. “Eh, Märit. Eh, Tembi! A feast!”

Märit does not watch the skinning and cleaning of the antelope. She cannot bear to watch the belly being cut open, the innards dragged out into the dust, the skin peeled back from the flesh. She knows that she will not be able to eat from the flesh of this animal, sacrificed to the hunter’s vanity, to Khoza.

When evening draws on and the fire is made in the
braai
pit, and the meat is placed above the hot coals, the smoke drifts into the house through the open window. Märit shuts the window, but the smell of the grilling meat wafts into the house, and saliva fills her mouth involuntarily, and she remembers how long it is since she ate meat, and she remembers
the taste, because the taste is in the air that drifts in with the smoke.

When Tembi calls Märit to come out to the
braai
pit, she relents; hunger overcomes her. To show her goodwill to the hunter, Märit takes from the cabinet in the living room a bottle of peach brandy and brings it with her to the fire that crackles bright and warm in the fading purple light, where the hunter stands, eyes bright from the flames, and the aroma of the meat is thick in the air.

A
FTERWARDS
, when their hands and faces are greasy with the fat and the juices from the barbecued meat, and their bellies are full, and their limbs are relaxed, they recline around the glowing fire under the stars, sated, content.

The brandy bottle has made its rounds; the sweet and fiery liquid complements the charred, smoky meat. Tembi declines the bottle when Märit passes it to her. Märit drinks, even though she is already light-headed, then passes it to Khoza. He swallows, smacks his lips, and settles the bottle between his feet.

Khoza then produces a small leather pouch from his pocket and pours dark tobacco into a sheaf of cigarette paper. He rolls the tobacco into a thin cylinder, licks the seam of the paper to seal it, and then lights the cigarette with a flaming twig. The cloud of smoke he exhales is pungent, like the smell of
khakibos
when it is burned off the fields.

“Give me one of your cigarettes, Khoza,” Märit says. “I don’t have any more.”

“This is strong tobacco, Märit.
Dagga.
Are you sure?”

“You always smoke mine, so now you can let me have one of yours.”

Khoza shakes out tobacco into the paper and repeats the process of rolling it into a cylinder. Just before he licks the seam of the cigarette he looks up at her and says, “You don’t mind that your lips will touch a cigarette from the mouth of a black man?”

“I’m not asking you to kiss me,” she retorts.

Tembi giggles.

“No, of course not,” Khoza answers with a chuckle, handing the cigarette to her.

Märit looks away, irritated that she has responded so flippantly.

The taste of the tobacco is harsh, resinous, like burning leaves, and sends her into a fit of coughing when she inhales.

“Too strong for the white lady?” Khoza says.

When she has recovered, Märit takes another puff, smaller, and inhales less deeply. She suppresses a cough when she sees Khoza is still regarding her with amusement.

A chill has settled on the night and Märit edges closer to the fire. The flames dance and flicker amongst the red coals of the fire. No other light breaks the darkness around the three people. For all Märit knows, theirs is the only fire burning in the night that lies over the country. This flame here, burning softly on the African veldt in the African darkness, as it might have burned aeons ago in the same way—only the stars, a fire, the figures huddled close around the warmth.

When she raises her eyes the stars seem a long way off. “It’s cold,” Märit says. Her voice echoes oddly, as if muffled and coming from outside her. She looks over at Tembi and Khoza, but neither of them answers. Did she speak? she wonders. Or did she only think she spoke?

She draws again on the resinous tobacco, and the smoke seems to lift her limbs so that they become light, weightless. If she turned and looked into the darkness she would see herself floating out there.

“Do you want some
dagga
, Tembi?” Khoza says. Märit watches as Tembi takes the cigarette and inhales a small puff.

“I didn’t know you smoked, Tembi,” Märit says.

“I don’t.” She breaks into a fit of giggles.

Khoza begins to laugh too.

“What’s the joke?” Märit asks, and her own voice seems almost foreign to her. Across the fire his eyes sparkle red, and his laughter is impish. He looks like a creature of the night, crouched there by the fire.

Märit turns her head and looks at Tembi, and the gesture of her turning seems to take a long time, as if the air is thick and viscous. It’s the cigarette, she thinks, it’s distorting my senses.

Tembi is leaning forward over the fire with absorbed concentration, a serene expression on her face. Her skin is tinted gold by the small flames, but her eyes are lost in caverns of deep shadow.

What do you see? Märit wants to ask, but the effort of forming the words defeats her; the words will not come. She turns her head slowly in the thick air and looks down into the embers, following Tembi’s gaze.

In the heart of the flames, where the coals glow crimson, she sees to her astonishment a miniature city, all aglow in crimson, with ancient turrets and towers and burning walls. The city seems familiar, a city that she knows, where she might even once have lived. A city remembered, but from a dream. As she watches, the coals shift in a little burst of flame and the towers and turrets collapse and crumble into fire.

A small cry of distress escapes from Märit. The walls crumble and the towers disappear into flame. Like a city from the Bible, she thinks, like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, remembering it from Sunday school when she was a girl. She sees the city from above, the burning city on the plain, as God must have seen it, the vengeful God who destroyed the city and turned the woman who looked back at the flame into a pillar of salt. The vengeful God, who destroyed the cities on the plain. Will we now be destroyed like the city in the Bible? Märit wonders.

She shakes her head. The cigarette is making her even more confused. She looks across the fire and sees the red eyes watching her. His black skin and his red eyes and his red tongue.

“Märit.” His voice comes, soft, a honeyed whisper.

“What?” Her voice too replies in a whisper, as if she will be overheard.

“You feel it, Märit?”

“What?”

“You feel the
dagga
, the herb? You floating up there yet?”

She looks down at the cigarette in her hand.

“That’s what you’re smoking,” he whispers. “The herb that the small people grow in the jungle.”

“What?” she repeats, unable to bring forth more than that one word.

“Märit,” he whispers, insinuating his voice into her consciousness.

Märit tosses the cigarette into the fire.

“Hey!” Khoza exclaims. “If you don’t want it you can give it back. What a waste!”

Tembi begins to giggle again. They seem to Märit like children, Tembi
and Khoza, like two small malicious children, laughing at her with impish faces. Little demons, laughing at her.

Märit is suddenly anxious. She does not know who they are, these two people. She thought she knew them, but now she realizes she doesn’t. She rises to her feet, suddenly afraid, aware of their conspiracy against her. She is afraid and lost and she stumbles backwards, anxious to be away from them. But there is nowhere for her to go.

She hurries towards the house, silent and dark and cold, yet she cannot enter, because it too is strange, with all the details and evidence of her false life. The woman who lives in there is not her. But if the Märit who lives in the house is not her, then who is the Märit that stands in the night outside?