You see, Marita, there are too many shadows where we come from. Too many shadows … shadows, shadows without end. Think of it, I am standing under a tree, the tree decides to fall on me, crushing me to shreds, breaking my rib. Do you not remember the day the baas boy kept on saying that I was feigning pain, that there was nothing seriously wrong with me?

  … Leave him for a while, but if Manyepo finds out, I will tell this man that he is a born liar. Tell your husband to rise and go to work. He did not come here to trouble us with all this feigned illness. How can a tree fall on someone just like that? He must have fallen from a rock, this your husband. You know how he spends much of his time hunting without Manyepo’s permission, trapping animals all over the place. A man must learn to control the desires of his mouth, Marita. Your husband thinks life is easy. He wants to be taken in the baas’s car to the hospital, where does he think the baas makes time for that? Baas Manyepo is a good man, but we workers are the problem. We feign all sorts of things and think that he cannot understand our behaviour …

  Marita, do you not see shadows in all this? Now you stand up to tell me you are going to look for your son in the city, leaving me alone to face Manyepo with a story, how do you think he will take it? I will be lucky to come out of it alive, Marita, alive. Remember how Chiriseri almost lost all his teeth when he went to tell Manyepo that his bull had been caught in the wire trap. Remember that, Marita. Marita, Manyepo can be fire itself. He eats fire and brings out the embers for the children to play with. I do not like him, but I have to work for him so that he can be happy. His happiness is my happiness. Think of me standing in front of his thick beard …

  ‘Baas, Marita has disappeared. She has gone away without telling me, not even a word. She has taken all her things with her. I do not know when she will return, baas.’

  ‘What do you mean, Marita has gone away? Are you not the husband?’

  ‘I am the husband, baas, but she is a strong woman who thinks her own way, baas.’

  ‘You must be joking. Tell me, how can she go when my fields need hard workers like her? You are organising things behind my back, you piccaninny. You want my farm to die, he e?’

  ‘No, baas, ask the baas boy, he knows the words which come out of Marita’s mouth. Hot words without any care about how they will fall on the hearer’s ears. I know nothing, baas.’

  ‘You know nothing. Do you think I brought you here to know nothing? I know you think your terrorist son will one day appear here and cause trouble for me. Manyepo chete. I will fix him and bring you his testicles to eat. I am well armed, my boy. You will never run my farm through your intimidation. Ask the baas boy, I am as hot as fire itself if you mess around with me.’

  Marita, these are the things you must think of. Flies will be nibbling at my intestines very soon, Marita. It is not good for me, this thing you have started. Too many shadows in our life. It started long back, long, long back, Marita. I knew it from the way I ran away from school. Ask the baas boy. We were together in school, and I used to beat him up even in the forest fights we had when we herded cattle. But now he kicks me around like a small boy because he was able to stay at school much longer than me. He can write and speak the language of the white man. Did you not hear him the other day, even speaking through the nose like Manyepo? He is another one that one. The way he keeps on saying beg pardon, beg pardon, to Manyepo as if the white man were his own elder brother. Ask him, Marita, I left school just like that.

  ‘Father, I have decided to stop going to the school.’

  ‘What! You must be talking through the voice of some evil spirit. After I have just sold all my cattle so that you can go to school?’

  ‘Since you like school so much, father, why don’t you yourself go? I do not want to continue being whipped on the buttocks by a woman as if I were a small boy. A man like me must think of marrying and building a home, not waste time sitting doing nothing at the school.’

  Then my father goes mad, picks up the firewood in the fireplace and tries to break my head with fire. I run away into the night full of fireflies, not fearing the howling of hyenas and jackals in the hills. I do not want to go to school, that is all. I stay in the forest for weeks, turning myself into a wild beast until my father feels pity for me and calls me back home. And now here I am, cracking my feet ploughing the land for another man and his wife to enjoy.

  But Marita, do you think if it were not for these bad shadows, I would have done things like that? Even the way I married you, full of dark shadows. How can a man marry and then sleep with his wife for so long without making her pregnant? Poverty started fighting me a long time ago, Marita. Do you not remember the days all the people came to try to take you away to a medicine-man to see why you could not nourish the seed I planted in you? The woman’s womb is dry, she ate all her eggs. The woman should give the man a chance, let him have another woman, then we will see if the nest continues to be empty. We cannot allow a name to die. The man cannot be buried with a rat. Yes, the man would have to be buried with a rat on his side if he dies without a child. Shame. That will be the end of the name. Childlessness is a sign of evil in the house. Evil spirits come in all sorts of ways. Have you not heard the story of a man who beat up his wife to death, to the grave? That is the work of the evil spirit. Evil spirits, they come in all sorts of ways. Some people just go away from home and never return as if they did not leave a name in the village. Evil spirits. Remember the man who slept with his own daughter and had a child … Marita, these shadows seem to follow me wherever I go. I am the father of evil spirits. Shadows, and shadows … the way they tortured you with herbs and cuts all over your body to give you a new womb which would bear us children. ‘If the river is flowing too strongly, flow with it,’ you said. ‘Flow to the very end because there you will find calmer waters so that you can swim to the bank,’ you said with your own mouth. So now, if anybody asks me the name of one who has tasted all medicines in this land, I am not ashamed to mention your name. How could I continue to live in the same village? I packed my things and went away. Then when they gave you all sorts of names, you followed and we ended up in this forest where baas Manyepo is the chief. He growls for you to wake up, he growls for you to sleep, he growls for you to go and eat your afternoon meal, he growls for you to come and earn whatever he decides to give you. What can we do, Marita? We are chiefs’ sons in a strange land.

  4

  Janifa

  Marita, how can you give me your pots and cooking things just like that? A woman giving away her pots and spoons is giving away her womanhood, my aunt used to say. Those are the marks of womanhood, Marita. How can you do such things to me? What will all the neighbours say when they hear that the things were given to a girl like me? The girl has been given the husband, the girl is the heir to a husband. Then they laugh as if they have seen what they have never seen before in their lives. Laughing at me all the time. It is not good to be the laughing stock of everybody in the farm. Farm people talk a lot. They say there is very little to talk about on the farm except Manyepo’s latest victims, those he has beaten or kicked in front of their own wives or children. Do they not say he once beat up your husband because he does not have young children who would take over from you the work you are doing now? They even say Manyepo asked your husband to ask another man to sleep with you if he can’t give you children himself. Do your ears not die when you hear such things about me? It is bad, Marita. Many bad things happen on this farm. Bad things even the ears of the deaf would not regret missing. You know how we wish we had wings when we see a bird flying in the air above the hills. But we never wish we had wings when we see a bird with a broken wing. It is the same, Marita.

  ‘My girl, I am going to tell you what nobody else knows. It must not enter the ears of those whose tongues dance with stories.’

  ‘What is it, Marita? Tell me. You know that it is you who said talk is the medicine for burdens of the heart.’

  ‘I will leave my husband one of these days.’

  ‘What? Leave a husband just like that? What has entered you? Do you not know that a man without a wife is like a leaf without a tree? Marita, talk properly.’

  ‘Yes, I am leaving him tomorrow so that I can go and look for my son in the city. They say some women have found their children and returned home happy. I want to be happy. I am not happy working for Manyepo. I tell him the problems of the workers here, he simply says manyepo kupela. This time I want him to see that we are not liars. I take the bus tomorrow. You and my husband are the only two people who know. Although they say a secret is no longer a secret if it has touched the ears of two people, I have no quarrel with you, so whatever you do with what I have told you, it will not affect me, I will no longer be working for Manyepo. All he worries about is his work, nothing about me or my son. I have broken my back working for him, but all he is good at is pouring scorn on my husband because he thinks nobody will take my place when I get old. Do you think that talk can take us to sunset properly? But I have been keeping my mouth shut because I knew what I was thinking about. My thoughts are my own. So if you want to hear more, I will tell you if I pass through here with my son. They tell me there is a long piece of paper with all the names of those who died in Mozambique. So if my son’s name is not there, I will know he is not dead. I will ask someone in the city to read the list to me. They say the city is full of people who can read even the languages from other places whose names I cannot say. They say there are good and bad people there just as we have them here. So I will persuade someone to read the names for me. I have a little money from breaking my back in Manyepo’s fields, enough to give to some of those they say can read but do not have a job in the city. They will be tempted to do it for me because they tell me people can kill you if you refuse to give them some few coins. Since they like money more than people, I will tell them I have the money to give them if they can read the names for me. If they tell me that my son’s name is not there, I will even give them some more.

  ‘Do you know Chisaga? He is a good man, but his greed for women is a bit too much. He came to me and pleaded that he will do anything if he can sleep with me. I said that was also my idea for a long time. But since he is the first to mention it, I want him to do something before he can sleep with me. I said he should steal some money for me from Manyepo’s safe in the house where he cooks for him every day. Since Manyepo trusts him so much, he will not think it is him. Manyepo will think of other people who have been caught stealing his mangoes, but not Chisaga. So Chisaga has stolen the money for me. He expects to sleep with me when he is not working, one of these days. But he will have nobody to sleep with because I knew what I was doing. Do not open your mouth so much, child. The things men will do to satisfy the desire of their things are very surprising. Men will kill their own mothers if they stop them from satisfying the desires of their things. They can dig a hole through a mountain if you tell them you will be waiting the other side of the hill to give them your thing. Men are like children, my mother used to say. They rule everything, like children. Do they not say children are like kings? You let them play with fire, but you always keep looking. You always keep looking at them so that they do not burn their fingers. This is what we do all the time. Look and watch over them. If it were not for men, do you think your grandfather would have died in places where they could not return his body for burial? Did your mother not say that your grandfather died fighting a war started by a man called Hikila who wanted to rule the whole earth? Think of that, a man who does not even know how to cook for himself wants to rule the whole earth. That is what men are like. They look at their things erect in front of them and think they are kings. They do not know that it is just desire shooting out of them, nothing else. So child, you do what you can with the weaknesses of men, but do not let them play around with your body. It is your last property, you will die with it. So do not let people waste it like any rubbish they pick up in the village rubbish heap. I know this because my mouth has eaten medicines which even a dog would vomit. My ear has heard things even a witch would faint to hear …’

  ‘But if you do what you want to do, who will tell me the things that keep me here?’ I say, amazed at how the chest of this one woman contains so many mountains and valleys and dark holes.

  But Marita, now that you are dead, who will show me where there are dark holes and stumps on the path to the well? Who will tell me the songs that made my heart sit in one place? Can you think of the hard hearts that are many here and tell me one which can lead me to a place of comfort? You used to say that a bird might fly high up in the sky, but its heart remains with the little ones in the nest. What I do not know is, am I one of the little ones you will think about as you fly in the sky?

  5

  Chisaga

  Cooking isn’t a good thing for a man, not a man like me. But Marita thinks the job I do is the best on the farm. She thinks it is bad for a man to roam Manyepo’s fields, smearing one’s face with the black mud from the fields that stretch for ever as if they were the sky. A man must do a job his children are proud to see him do, says Marita. Yes, I cook for Manyepo and his dogs, but what do I get in return … ‘Thank you, Chisaga, this was a good sauce, give some to the dog as well … Chisaga, what do the workers think of me? Do you talk much with them out there in the compound? Tell me, Chisaga, what does your name mean in the village where you come from? Is it because you are big that they give you this name? … I am told Manyepo is a very respectable name, is that true? Do they call me Manyepo because I tell them when they are lazy? Bastards, there is not a farmer I know who does not have some form of nickname. Chisaga, what was your father’s nickname? Did you see him, I mean were you born before he died? Shame’ … I keep my mouth closed. Nothing beats a closed mouth, nothing. A closed mouth is a cave in which to hide. So I hide myself there so that Manyepo does not see too much in my mouth. Many people have killed themselves because they are too loud-mouthed. A loud mouth is a big trap. It can even kill lions. It burns forests. Did our people not say the tongue is a little flame which burns forests? Yes, it is true. So I have kept quiet for many years, they pass as if I do not see them in my own way, with my own eyes. Eyes that know much should always keep open. Manyepo, do you know what I could do with the food I cook for you? I could put a lot of things in your food. But I hate to think about it. If someone else did such things to my own food, I would never eat food again. Never. How can I eat food after it has been tainted with mucus or even water from the nappies. That is bad for anybody’s mouth. As for the stomach, although they say a stomach is like a blind man, it can hold on to anything, it must not have unmentionable things in it. One’s stomach is one’s ancestor. Where would one be without a good stomach? Do they not say that one day, mouth, stomach, hand and foot engaged in a senseless argument about who was king? But when nose discovered the argument, he also refused to smell the food for them. Things could not work out well for the stomach. The eyes began to cry and the hands became weak, so weak that a mere fly could have made them collapse. Then an agreement was reached, and all worked well then. But stomach kept on rumbling and roaring like a lion to make sure that all kept hearing stomach’s presence. This is why mouth thought of the saying that one’s stomach is one’s ancestor. Manyepo, know what is good for you, always.

  ‘Chisaga, you bloody crook, too quiet for nothing.’

  ‘Yes baas.’

  ‘Yes baas, yes baas, can’t you say something more than yes baas? Bring us the whisky quick, the madam is burning of thirst.’

  ‘Yes baas.’

  Manyepo, do you not know that the poor also see the rich? I may not be able to move it, but when a river flows near my crops, I see it. Some things are for the mouth, Manyepo. Other things are for the eyes only. A river cannot flow for ever. Seasons leave room for one another. Rain, dry, cold, rain, dry, cold, rain dry cold. Look at me now, poverty is like my stubborn friend. Always with me, but I look with the eyes of my own village and say—the leaves fall, but they will come back again one day. The stars die, but one day they will come back after the sun, their enemy, has left the dancing arena. Look at me. Do you think I do not dream of riding in a car like yours which flows like water in the river? A car that makes you sink into it as if you were in the depth of the waters without drowning. But recall the words of the ancestors. A king’s son is a nobody in other lands, strange lands. So I just look at all this and swallow my saliva as if it has become a crime to spit it on to the hard earth.

  Yes, Marita, I have been wanting to sleep with you for a long time. I have been wanting to see how I can help you for a long time. A very long time. A man must see things for a long time, only to say them out after a long time so that the heart can sift the chaff from the grain of the matter. Things must not be left to the clouds. But now that you also say you have been thinking about that for a long time, it makes me feel the place where my heart is stored. It makes me sing on my way home like the little girl who has heard words of love for the first time from the boy next door. But to take Manyepo’s money is a job I have never dreamt of … Do not steal. The products of your arms are the things your heart should strive for … my own father used to say when I stole an egg or two from the chickens roaming the village … Use your hands, and be proud only of the products of your own hands … he used to say, staring at his empty hands, dry shrivelled hands that he had worn out working in the mines in Jo’burg. Joni … Joni is the place of all sorts of things … he said … the place where some men’s sons went and never remembered to come back. Some even forgot their very names … Who is your father? the others asked … Why you bloody ask me who my father is? Do you not know that a man such as me cannot be born of man and woman? they answered back, staggering home in the mystery of the knives and all sorts of dangerous weapons … My father still came back with his head right. Trust the yields of your own hands, he said. He died poor. Not a good thing for a man with so many children. Maybe if one is poor, one cannot afford to be poor in the head. So he died poor. A poor man. A poor man with a shrunken skin and a missing toe. The mines can do a lot of things to you which are difficult to describe. Many things.

 

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