The concern in the old woman’s voice shows that she is worried and Raina doesn’t answer. She asks instead: ‘Mother, why don’t you eat the food I give you?’

  ‘If my belly says yes and my teeth say no, what should I do?’

  ‘My husband says if I don’t give you food you complain to people—even when you know you don’t have the teeth for it.’

  ‘Well, not having teeth for it doesn’t mean that I am not hungry.’

  ‘But Mother, you know what people are like. They spread gossip that I don’t care well enough for you.’

  ‘And if they say so and it’s not the truth—haven’t people always been like that? Would they be called people if they didn’t have dirt to talk about?’

  ‘Well, with you it’s all right. But you know what it is when they begin to say: “She doesn’t give her husband’s mother food.”’

  ‘And have I said that you don’t give your husband’s mother food?’

  ‘But she says so. You know her mouth.’

  ‘And is that why you came so early—to pick on me?’

  ‘I am not picking on you, Mother. I—’

  She breaks off quickly because her mother clicks her tongue in that way as if to say: I shall never forget it. So she rushes to explain: ‘I am not saying you are wrong or anything like that. But you understand my feelings, don’t you, Mother? I am only a woman here. Any time he feels he doesn’t need me any more he can tell me to go and there is nothing you or I can do about it. And please, don’t say anything that he is likely to misinterpret—anything to make him feel that you think you are a burden to him. You must not even hint that you are angry or not happy here. If there is anything you want, please ask me and I shall do it for you. I promise you I shall. You must tell me if anyone here—be it him, his father, his mother or even myself—wrong you in any way. Tell me immediately and not after you are gone. Do you hear me, Mother? Do you hear me? It would be all right if, after you are gone, you come back to me. I am, at least, your blood—and spare his children the curse of the grave. You know what that will be like for me when everywhere I go people whisper: “There she is—burying child after child because she wronged her mother.” So, Mother, tell me whatever you don’t like right now, and I shall pay here and now while you are still with us and spare his children the curse of the grave.’

  Raina stops, looks at her mother, realizes by the fury with which she shells the nuts that she has heard her and she is not angry at all but only sad. Seeing her mother like this, Raina doesn’t want her to answer anything, so she quickly changes the subject.

  ‘The boy who is going overseas is coming today.’

  Her mother sighs, relieved. She speaks in a voice completely lighter from what her daughter would have expected by the look on her face.

  ‘I have been talking about him to his father,’ she says.

  Raina is quiet a little, then says: ‘You know, Mother, I don’t want the boy to go overseas.’

  After a pause, the mother says: ‘What does his father say?’

  ‘He wants him to go.’

  ‘Then you are only a woman. You have no mouth. Let it be as his father wishes.’

  ‘I don’t think he will come to any good out there all alone, Mother,’ Raina says with a break in her voice.

  Her mother only sighs and says instead: ‘Is his brother coming for the farewell?’

  ‘Garabha?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one knows where he is.’

  There is a long pause, then Old Mandisa says: ‘I wanted all the family together before Lucifer goes. I don’t think there shall be any other time we shall all be together again.’

  ‘I shall send the boys to inquire as to his whereabouts.’

  ‘And you have told Matandangoma?’

  ‘We have sent her word and the girl will go there again this evening to confirm it.’

  After this, neither of them has anything to say. They shell the nuts in silence. Because there are so many things to be done at home today in preparation for the boy’s coming, Raina is not going to the fields.

  Looking out later, raising her head from the nuts, Raina sees the top leaves of the one or two tall trees to the west of their home tinted the colour of over-ripe mangos…

  Chapter Six

  The sun has been up for some time now. This homestead is now seen to be a bead in a long irregular string of other homes. The neighbours on either side are at least half-a-mile away to the north and south.

  It is October and the bushes show little bright green, red, and orange leaves: preparing for the rain.

  Coming from the well, half-a-mile down the village, balancing the clay water-pot on her head, Betty hears her grandmother Japi calling. On other, brighter days, she would be singing. Today she is not. And she does not answer her grandmother who is still calling—as if she is on fire, Betty thinks irritably.

  Raina, who is in a cloud of dust—sweeping the yard—sees Betty coming and calls out: ‘Don’t you hear your grandmother?’

  Betty does not answer, and Raina says to herself: ‘She is on her tree again.’ These sudden moods of her daughter’s frighten her. She knows well the reason for them. Betty should have been married together with the other girls of her age-group four or five years ago. Raina wonders how she is going to tell her to go to the bus-stop to meet her brother. Betty and Lucifer have never been on good terms with each other.

  ‘Isn’t that Japi calling?’ Old Mandisa asks. She is now sitting in the sun against the eastern wall of her hut, shelling the nuts.

  ‘Yes,’ Raina answers.

  ‘What does she say now?’

  ‘Who knows? Is there an end to what she wants?’

  Now Old Japi’s voice goes a little higher: ‘Isn’t there anyone in this place who can bring me a little water?’

  Old Mandisa says: ‘Well, why don’t you answer her?’

  ‘Betty will take her something to eat.’

  ‘Something to eat already?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Betty, who has now entered the kitchen where she can be heard shouting to her little brothers to get their bottoms away from the fire and get ready for school, now comes out with a cup of water.

  ‘What’s that?’ her mother asks.

  ‘The water she is asking for.’

  ‘That is to say you don’t know your grandmother by now? She wants something to eat, not to drink.’

  ‘Well, she is asking for water, and it shall be water.’

  ‘Ai, Betty. You want to start up something at this early hour?’

  ‘Something to eat when she ate fit to burst last night!’ Betty says, as she throws the water on to the ground.

  Quietly, Raina says: ‘Let her be. Whose belly feels the pinch?’

  ‘Be—tty!’

  This time Raina answers: ‘Betty is coming, Granny!’

  ‘I am dying,’ the grandmother, Japi, calls in a weak voice.

  ‘Don’t you hear her, Betty? She is dying,’ Raina says and begins to laugh.

  ‘What does she say?’ Old Mandisa asks, hearing her daughter laugh.

  ‘She says she is dying.’

  ‘Your mother-in-law,’ Old Mandisa says, shaking her head, quietly laughing to herself.

  ‘She is lucky,’ Raina says.

  ‘Well, it’s her time,’ Old Mandisa says, and her tone makes Raina stop what she is doing to wait for the rest of the statement, which comes immediately: ‘I should be doing the same.’

  And Raina, drawing closer to the old woman, says: ‘Please, Mother, are you not happy here?’

  Old Mandisa raises her hand in shocked admonition: ‘Now, now, Raina. I am not saying anything. Don’t let your husband hear that. I am thankful. What son-in-law puts up with his wife’s mother the way your husband does these days? Don’t think I am not grateful. Only, I find myself—wishing—sometimes, that He could have left me only one son. Just one son. Is that too much to ask?’

  ‘It is not your fault. You didn’t bring it on yourself. It comes to anybody—to all of us. The Earth takes back its own.’

  The old woman is quiet, so quiet that Raina knows that her mind hasn’t left the subject. Deftly, she steers her away from her brooding: ‘Your cows are doing fine.’

  ‘How many have calved this year?’

  ‘One, and three will calve this coming summer.’

  ‘Now, how many will that make them in all?’

  ‘Nine, all being well.’

  ‘Nine?’

  ‘Nine, yes. Virtually all we have left in the pen—together with grandfather’s.’

  ‘Wish I had eyes to see them.’

  ‘Well, they are yours. Having eyes to see them wouldn’t make them less or more.’

  ‘Ai, I don’t mean that.’

  ‘Well, you sound as if we would steal your—’

  ‘Who steals? No, Raina. I am not saying that. I trust Tongoona. My brother swindled me out of four head—but that’s past now. These here are really yours. I would give them to you any day. You have children who go to school—and I am thankful I have a home.’

  ‘You sound as if you have to pay for living here with us—when it was really my husband’s wish that you come to spend your last days here.’

  ‘Ai, Raina. You are making too many words.’

  And with that she turns to her nuts, and Raina goes back to her sweeping. She decides to leave the yard for Betty to do after despatching the children to school. She will do Lucifer’s room. She will personally sweep out the chicken crut, smear the floor with cowdung to stay the dust, and clean the cobwebs in the corners. Betty should have done Lucifer’s room, but then, Betty and Lucifer… no.

  ‘Raina!’ Old Mandisa is calling.

  ‘What is it, Mother?’

  ‘I had forgotten. I promised Japi I would make her pumpkin porridge today. Put that big pot on the fire for me. And then get me one of those big pumpkins in the barn. I will do it right away. I am sure the boy will be hungry too by the time he gets here. It’s a long way from Salisbury.’

  ‘Why, Mother, why? You aren’t feeling well. Betty or I can do that for you.’

  ‘If I say I can do it, do I lie? After all you have got other things to do and Betty will soon be going to the bus. I am no longer good for anything else, at least, I can do that.’

  Without another word, Raina goes away to attend to her mother’s orders.

  Chapter Seven

  Betty is standing over Old Japi who is lying on smoky blankets in her hut. The old woman rolls her eyes as if she is in great pain. She tries to rise to sitting position but she falls back on to the mat, moaning. Betty hasn’t said anything since entering the hut. She just stands there with the plate of cold sadza and milk, staring at the old woman. Seeing that Betty doesn’t say anything, and feeling that she is being laughed at, Old Japi says: ‘You don’t say: “How is your stomach, Granny”—what kind of a girl are you?’

  Betty makes a face and laughs mirthlessly and dumps the plate by the old woman’s feet, saying: ‘If you don’t like it you can throw it out to Kutu, the dog.’ With that Betty goes out, slamming the door behind her. She doesn’t hear her grandmother calling her back to make the fire for her.

  With the girl gone and the door closed, Japi makes no effort at all and she has the plate in her hands. She lays her fingers on the sadza.

  ‘Cold, too. Munya zvawo, munya. Left over from last night. And I am expected to take this while they take it hot.’

  For a moment she wonders whether she should leave the sadza uneaten so that when they come to collect the plates they will see that she is really ill and must have her food hot. She stares at the sadza for a long time, undecided, then gingerly, she begins to eat. By the time she has taken four mouthfuls she is eating ravenously. And at that moment the door bursts open and Betty looks in. The old woman quickly throws herself back on to the blankets but again the door is closed and she can hear Betty laughing, going away. Slowly she rises to finish her meal, saying to no one: ‘They don’t care. No, they don’t care at all for me.’ Pause. ‘One of these days they will just find me dead in here.’ Pause. ‘I would like to see them not caring then.’

  She wipes the plate clean and lies back on her blankets, belches, wonders when Mandisa will be bringing the pumpkin porridge she promised her yesterday. She wishes Mandisa would forget and then she would have reason to tell them to their faces that they don’t care for her. And now she wishes she would die, but then, she tells herself, she wouldn’t be able to see—to know whether or not they suffer…

  Chapter Eight

  ‘And how have you slept today, old lady?’

  Old Mandisa stops what she is doing to see who it is. The voice, yes, she recognizes it. But she is not certain whether it is him, or not.

  ‘Kutsvaka?’ she ventures.

  ‘Who else? And how are the eyes?’

  Kutsvaka, the northern neighbour, approaches the old woman and crouches in the sand beside her.

  ‘Who minds the eyes now? Let them be.’ And the old woman shuts her mouth firmly and returns to her nuts.

  Raina, who has seen Kutsvaka coming through the bush, disappears into her mother’s hut where she can be heard scraping crust from the pot for the pumpkin.

  Kutsvaka changes his position, clears phlegm from his throat, spits and covers the gob up with sand and asks: ‘And where are the people of the home?’

  Old Mandisa looks up innocently, apparently surprised and says: ‘Would I know? I thought they were around. I don’t have the eyes to see them when they go out.’

  The children, three boys of thirteen, ten and seven, come out of the kitchen, see Kutsvaka and quietly turn away to leave home for school by another way. Betty remains in the kitchen listening to Old Mandisa talking to Kutsvaka.

  ‘And how is his back now?’ Kutsvaka asks.

  Old Mandisa deliberately takes time to answer this question, and when she does, her voice is very loud and curt: ‘No change.’

  ‘I have seen him passing by my place. Going to the fields, I suppose?’

  Old Mandisa shakes her head: ‘His wife tells me he couldn’t sleep with that back of his, so I don’t think he was going where you think he was going.’

  Kutsvaka lets some time pass before asking: ‘And the mother of the home?’

  ‘She is asleep. She can’t go to the fields, she has got a terrible headache.’

  ‘I see.’

  Old Mandisa looks up sharply: quickly Kutsvaka looks aside. Silence. Then: ‘I hear the boy is coming today?’

  Slowly, Old Mandisa puts down her basket, carefully looks up at Kutsvaka—who looks away—and asks: ‘Which boy?’

  ‘The one going overseas.’

  ‘The one going overseas? Who told you there is a boy going overseas here? I haven’t heard anything.’

  ‘People hear and they carry what they hear.’

  ‘True. But they told you lies. There is no boy going overseas here.’

  ‘But he is coming today, isn’t he?’

  ‘Who is coming today?’

  ‘The boy in Salisbury?’

  ‘Oh, him. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask his parents. They should know. They didn’t tell me anything. Did you want to see the boy?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? Aren’t we neighbours and hasn’t he grown up in my eyes?’

  ‘Of course… of course. And how is the wife and children?’

  ‘In bed, the wife is. And the children don’t go to school.’

  ‘What ails them?’

  ‘She has pains in the chest. And now it’s with the children too. As usual. They know the rains are coming and they won’t let me have a fair start.’

  ‘That’s the way with people.’

  ‘But it’s too much with me now. Why don’t they find someone else to do it to? Every year when the rain is in the nose either my wife or I am taken ill. Every year when they are about to write their final examinations my children have to go down with one illness or another. Am I the only one with a full belly here that they should do that to me?’

  Old Mandisa doesn’t answer.

  Kutsvaka asks: ‘And this other one—the wild one—Garabha—is he coming too?’

  ‘Who knows with him? He comes and goes like the wind.’

  ‘The other day I saw him by the river. Dead drunk, he was, asleep. I tried to wake him up but would he hear me?’

  ‘I said he comes and goes like the wind.’

  ‘He is one unlike anyone I know of this family.’ Pause. ‘He is really wild.’

  They fall silent. Then after clearing his throat twice, Kutsvaka says: ‘When the boy comes—the one in Salisbury—my daughter, Rudo, would like to see him. There are some things—books—you know children—she would like to return to him before he goes away.’

  ‘If he comes,’ Old Mandisa says.

  ‘If he comes, yes,’ Kutsvaka says, standing up.

  He takes a step then stops and says—as an afterthought: ‘And if that other one—Garabha—the wild one, if he does turn up tell him I have got a little beer for a job I want done.’

  ‘I shall tell him.’

  ‘Thank you. I go now.’

  ‘Go well.’

  And after Kutsvaka has left, Old Mandisa spits in the sand and curses: ‘Vamasare!’

  Raina comes out. ‘What did he want?’ she asks, her hand to her breast.

  ‘He has heard the boy is coming today.’

  ‘Who told him?’

  ‘Who knows? Don’t I always tell you to be careful who you speak in front of?’

  ‘But can I tell her to go out whenever I am talking of the children?’

  Old Mandisa is quiet, deliberately she cracks a nut, making it explode with an unusual noise. A familiar pain pulls up Raina’s right eye and her mouth follows in a little crease. She leaves her mother and goes into the kitchen where Betty is preparing breakfast.

  Betty looks up at her mother and, seeing her face, straightens up in alarm. She whispers: ‘That again?’

  Raina sits down, is quiet for a long time and finally asks: ‘You didn’t tell Rudo that Lucifer is coming today, did you?’

 

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