A Blade of Grass (16 page)

“He is waiting for you in the car.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think that he found his visit here was a waste of time.”

Eloise clutches the plate of pastries closer to her body and immediately steps out of the house.

Connie sets the tray down, shaking her head. “What have you done now, child?”

Märit rises and takes Connie by the hand, leading her towards the door. “I know you are kind, Connie, and that you mean well, but I don’t want help. I am going to do this on my own.”

“Child, you don’t know what you are saying. This is a harsh world.”

“I know that already,” Märit answers.

She stands on the veranda and watches the car pull away, the Predikant sitting upright, looking straight ahead, Connie shaking her head and waving, Eloise Pretorius turning to direct a last malevolent stare at Märit.

T
HE LIFE
of the farm has a rhythm of its own. Momentum and habit turn the wheels of the days. Each morning Märit wakes to the alarm clock, and after breakfast on the shaded veranda she walks the farm—sometimes with Tembi, sometimes alone. Always Joshua is there, even if she does not intentionally seek him out; even if she leaves the house earlier than usual, he always materializes at her side, as if he knows her movements.

And so she learns—of the maize and the sorghum and the cattle. She tries to remember the names of the workers. She inspects the kraal where they live. They become used to her—she hopes.

Momentum and habit turn the wheels of the days and Märit tries to set her own actions in tandem with the rhythm of the farm. The days pass, the weeks pass. The maize plants reach high, the fruit in the orchard ripens.

Sometimes, when she is alone, before Joshua has appeared, Märit thinks of Ben, and how she ought to have walked the farm more often with him. Perhaps then the distance that was always there between them might have been bridged. But he did not want her next to him on the land; he wanted her to be in the house, protected and pampered, unsullied by dust and grease. He wanted her to stand above what he saw as crude labor.

When she thinks of him now she cannot feel any presence next to her. His image fades with the days, and sometimes she forgets him entirely, then recollects her lapse with guilty admonishments. But sometimes she says to herself, Why must the dead accompany the living? All her memories and recollections will not change the fact of Ben’s death, of his permanent absence.

In the afternoon, when the midday sun has lost its brilliance and strength, Märit works with Tembi in the flower garden next to the house. She weeds with a long-handled hoe, like the women in the sorghum fields do, and she crouches to dig her hands into the fertile soil—for must she not also work the land if she is to be mistress of this farm?

When dusk falls Tembi begins to prepare the evening meal and Märit retreats to her office. Over the past weeks she has sat here almost every night, sorting through papers—invoices, bills of sale, tax notices, the house deed, letters to suppliers of machinery and seeds, brochures, correspondence with the veterinarian, crop rotation plans, weather charts that calculate annual rainfall over the years, circulars from the Agricultural Board. There is so much to know.

No visitors come to the farm. Once or twice the telephone in the house rings, but neither Märit nor Tembi answers. The sun warms the farm, and warms Märit, so that her arms and her face lose their pale color and take on a hue like that of the grass on the veldt. The muscles in her arms and legs grow strong and fill out. She stands upright, head erect, and the old distant look is not in her eyes as often as it used to be.

Tembi does not go to the kraal anymore. She has moved all of her belongings to the house, and the room where she sleeps is now her own room. Once or twice she has wandered into the dairy, to talk to the other girls who work there. But she senses the change in the tone of their chatter, their sudden diffidence in her presence; she hears the lightness return to their voices when she leaves.

On one of these visits a girl named Onika says to Tembi, “How long will the Missus be alone like this? When will she take another husband?”

Tembi shrugs. Onika persists. “What is the Missus thinking? What do you see in her face, what do you hear when she speaks?”

“I don’t know what she thinks.”

Onika shakes her head, disbelieving. “Joshua says that the Missus will not be able to learn this farming. He says she will have to sell if she cannot find another husband.”

“You don’t know her,” Tembi retorts. “You don’t know anything about her.”

Onika shakes her head again. “The Missus is like one of those bright flowers in her garden. When the soil is dry and the sun is hot, she will wilt.”

Tembi retreats, wondering if there is truth in these words, and from outside the dairy she hears the lightness return to the voices of the girls, the laughter.

And if Tembi encounters other workers, they too ask her questions, for they wonder about their jobs, about their place on this farm. They too doubt Märit. But Tembi can give them no answers. She no longer belongs with them.

And so she remains close to the house, cleaning, cooking, helping Märit in the flower garden, and she seldom ventures out with Märit in the mornings to inspect the fields.

When night falls Tembi is happiest, for then she sits after dinner on the veranda with Märit in the darkness under the thick sky of stars, and they talk. Märit tells of her days as a girl, of her school and her parents, of how she met Ben, and of her honeymoon in Durban.

Tembi recalls her own childhood in the place beyond the mountains. She tells of her father leaving to seek work in the gold mines, and how the winters were hard when the crops failed and there was no maize or sorghum to eat.

Tembi listens to Märit, and she says, “All these things you speak of, I have never seen them. My own life seems so small. I have seen nothing.”

“One day we will go together and see all these places,” Märit reassures her.

“You will take me to Durban,” Tembi asks, “to visit the ocean?”

Märit nods. But the future is beyond her at the moment. It is vague; she is too much occupied with each particular. Tembi considers the questions that the girls in the dairy ask her, and she looks into Märit’s face. But Märit is still a stranger to Tembi. What is in her heart, Tembi does not know.

Still, they can share this small world here on the veranda under the stars, and for now that is enough.

O
NE MORNING
the alarm in Märit’s bedroom does not ring and she sleeps through the hour when she would normally walk her rounds of the
farm. It is Tembi who wakes her, bringing coffee and rusks on a tray to the room.

Märit sits up with a start, glancing at the clock and then out the window where the day is already bright.

“It doesn’t matter today,” Tembi tells her. “Nobody will mind if you don’t inspect the farm today. Here is coffee.”

Märit takes the cup and sips, then grimaces at the taste. Tembi says, “There is no sugar in the coffee. We have no more sugar.”

Märit drinks anyway.

“We need other things too,” Tembi says. “Not only sugar but coffee soon, and salt, and cigarettes for you.”

“We’ll go into town and do some shopping today,” Märit tells her. For a split second it is on the tip of Märit’s tongue to say, Ben will drive us, but then she remembers. “I’ll telephone Connie van Staden and see if she will drive us in.”

But later, when Märit lifts the receiver to dial, she hesitates, picturing the day—sitting in the car next to Connie, with Tembi in the back seat. And after the shopping Connie will want to go for tea and cakes at the hotel, and Tembi will have to wait outside. Or will Connie even want to be seen with Märit now? And there will be other women there, who will stare at her and whisper disapprovingly.

Märit does not want to subject herself to the well-meaning attention of Connie—the sympathetic questions, the advice that will surely be forthcoming. And the pity. Behind the generosity there’s pity. Märit does not want it.

From beyond the open front door she hears the sound of an engine—Joshua driving the tractor. Everywhere she looks, Joshua is there. His presence is insistent, almost aggressive, and she senses that he does not trust her on any matter relating to the farm. Sometimes she feels that it is his farm, that he controls and manages it. Märit defers to him, in spite of herself, in spite of the growing dislike she feels towards him. And the truth is that she is a bit afraid of him, for he is stern and humorless.

She watches the tractor moving back and forth between the sheds and an idea occurs to her.

“Tembi,” she calls. “We will go to town today—on the tractor.”

“But can you drive that machine?”

“No. But I’ve seen how Ben handled the tractor. I’ll practice a little bit first.”

“And you can teach me!”

But first they must wait for Joshua to finish whatever it is that he is doing. Märit sits down at the kitchen table with pen and paper and writes out a list—besides the sugar and cigarettes and other staples, she needs shampoo, face cream, deodorant, bath oil, sanitary pads. After considering a moment she crosses out the list of cosmetics and writes instead only one item—
soap.

The women remain in the house throughout the morning, both listening always to the sound of the tractor engine.

What is he doing that takes so long? Märit wonders. She cannot bring herself to go across to Joshua and tell him that she requires the tractor. The tractor does not belong to Joshua, it belongs to her; there is no need to be afraid of him. But she is afraid of him, and so she will wait.

At last, when it is almost noon, the tractor falls silent. From the veranda Märit and Tembi watch Joshua striding up from the orchard towards the kraal.

“He will go now for his midday porridge and beer,” Tembi says.

“Come,” Märit tells her.

They steal across the lawn and past the rock garden and skirt the peach trees, making for the shed where the tractor is kept. Märit keeps glancing backward to make sure they are unobserved. When they reach the shed they find the door is shut and fastened with a padlock.

“I didn’t think he would keep it locked,” Märit says.

“Now we can’t drive the tractor. Unless you ask Joshua for the key.”

“There is another key, in the office, hanging inside the cupboard door. I’ll go back and fetch it.”

“I can go,” Tembi says. “What does it look like?”

“There is a whole bunch, fastened with a strip of leather. Just bring them all.”

In the house, on the hooks behind the cupboard door in the office a great many keys are hung. Tembi takes a moment to find the bunch fastened
with the leather thong, then closes the door and hurries back through the house. As she passes the passage leading down to the bedrooms a sudden sound catches her ear. She pauses and listens. The sound is there again—the creak of a wooden drawer sliding shut.

“Märit? Is that you?” Tembi moves along the passage to Märit’s room. The curtains are drawn against the light and her eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the gloom.

“Märit?” She sees the figure in the room and recoils with a gasp.

Joshua is standing at Märit’s dresser; one of the drawers is still open.

“What are you doing in here?” Tembi demands, her voice shaking, for she too fears the stern presence of Joshua. “This is the Missus’s room. You can’t come in here.”

Joshua slides the drawers shut with his knee and steps away from the dresser, glaring at her. Tembi retreats from him. She is afraid of him and she clutches the bunch of keys behind her back.

“You think this is your house now, eh?” he says. He steps closer, moving his bulk between Tembi and the door, and she shrinks away from him.

“What are you doing here?” she demands again, her eyes moving to the dresser. “What are you taking from the dresser?”

He is close to her, so that she can smell his sweat and the pungent tang of gasoline.

“Because you are the
meid
in the house you think you can tell me to get out?” Joshua says.

Tembi is afraid of him, but still she says, “You are stealing!”

Joshua lifts his arm quickly, and she ducks, thinking he is about to strike her, but he grasps her around the throat, his big hand enclosing her neck, lightly, though, until she tries to break free, and then his fingers tighten. The skin of his palm is calloused, rough against the softness of her throat. His eyes are bloodshot, with a gleam in them, and she wonders if he is drunk, but there is no taint of alcohol on his sour breath. There is only the smell of gasoline from his hand.

His hand drops away from her throat and Tembi gulps a deep breath.

“If you say anything to her…” Joshua threatens in a hoarse whisper, and his hand darts around her breast, squeezing, “I will cut this off!” His
eyes bear down at her, and he squeezes harder until Tembi cringes with the pain and whimpers. Then he drops his hand and goes away, leaving behind the sour odor of sweat and gasoline.

Tembi sinks down on the bed, cradling her aching breast until the pain subsides. She hears the sound of the kitchen door slam shut, and she waits, and then she rises to her feet, retrieves the keys from the bed, and leaves the house.

“Did you find the keys?” Märit asks when Tembi reappears.

Tembi turns an apprehensive eye back up to the house. “I don’t think we should take the tractor.”

“But why not? It belongs to me. If I want to use it I will. And don’t you want to learn to drive it?”

Tembi shakes her head. She wants to tell Märit what has just happened. But she is afraid. What will Joshua do if she tells? She fears that there is something evil and violent in him. And if she tells, what can Märit do against him, what can two women do against him? He has a kind of power on this farm that Märit does not have.

“Is it Joshua you are worried about?”

“I don’t like him,” Tembi answers.

“Never mind Joshua. Give me the keys.” Märit holds out her hand.

Tembi says nothing, only waits as Märit unlocks the doors and pushes them wide open to reveal the tractor. The smell of gasoline and oil hangs thick in the confines of the shed.

Märit climbs up onto the tractor and settles herself in the seat, placing her hands on the big steering wheel. She remembers riding with Ben, standing next to him as the tractor jolted across the veldt, his hands capable and confident as he worked the controls. He’d asked her if she wanted to drive the machine, but she was happy to stand behind him with her hands on his shoulders and her body leaning into his strong back.

Her feet find the accelerator and the brake, she presses down on the clutch, which is stiff and takes more effort than she expects. Using her right hand she works the heavy gear lever through its positions, remembering how Ben did it.

“We can walk to town,” Tembi calls up to Märit.

“No.” Märit turns the ignition key and presses the starter button.