‘You can speak like that if you have no mother, if you did not come from the womb of a mother like me. You can pour hot words out of your mouth, but you have a body in here which nobody wants to go and bury. I want to go and bury it because I have seen the woman when she was alive.’ She walks nearer the man, prayerfully.

  ‘I am sorry, mother, but tell me what makes you think you can bury someone whom you met on the bus? Tell me.’ The man sits back and listens like a teacher attending to a child’s plea.

  *

  Marita is not someone I met on the bus. She is much more than that. Imagine, just think of it, a woman who gives me so much of what is inside her heart without crying. In our journey she took me to the well, back into the kitchen, then to the forest to gather firewood. It does not happen every day that someone you meet shows you the pain inside her heart, the troubles inside her mind. The mind is a hidden thing. The heart also is a hidden thing. Do they not say the mouth is a small cave with which to hide the things of inside. Many burdensome things which weigh inside the breast of a person. Marita showed me all the burdens I have inside me, but she did so without shedding even a little tear or making me feel sorry for her.

  From the time Marita sat beside me on the seat of the bus, I felt her warmth seep into me, tickling my heart with a certain joy inside. She just said, ‘How high will the sun be by the time we get to the big city? I am anxious.’ She stared at the country whirling away outside the bus, trees in their green and rocks wearing the different patterns of their birth, the grass green with little patches of bare ground as if the children have been playing there. But there were no children. These were large farmlands which nobody farms. The owners are frenzied or vicious when they see someone walking through these unspoiled forests that are their farms. ‘But there is no bus or car to take the walker away from the roads through the farms. So, one does not know how to leave the farmlands and reach the bus-stop. It is far away from the farm where I work,’ she says with much ease, no bitterness.

  But when we pass through the sugar farmlands, she keeps quiet as if she has nothing to say.

  But then she says her own brother once worked there in the cane fields. He did not return. They say he died of an unknown disease, so they could not allow us to take the body for burial at home in the way our ancestors taught us. The houses of the sugar plantations are not good for people who work so hard. You should see the cane- cutters rising early in the morning before anything is awake, and then see them return in the afternoon. They are like trees burnt black, with legs and eyes. You know they burn the cane before they cut it, to scare away big snakes, they say. But it turns the bodies of the cane-cutters black like charcoal. If you see your mother’s son in that blackness, you cry. You cry just like that. Tears just come into your eyes, and your heart bleeds. Then you know that the only thing they will do to forget their pain is to drink much beer and end up singing empty songs about how things will be better tomorrow.

  Do you think there will be a tomorrow for someone who is already dead today? Do you think that black ash is good for anybody’s lungs? I do not think so. That is why my brother died a bad death. They say he was clever with the cane machete when he was still strong. He worked with a white man called baas Macdhogo, but they say the white man’s temper was not good because he was getting old before he made much money, so he fought a lot with my brother until one day it happened. Then they came to us saying that he had died of something bad which can kill us all if we bury him—because we do not know how to prevent the sickness from spreading to the lungs of those near him. He will be buried by those who know how to stop the bad illness from spreading. We shut our mouths and said one day the sun will rise for all to see.

  My friend, Marita says, I have these things in my heart, but the thing that swells inside like a boil is the desire to see my son alive again. He was only a boy when he left to go and fight for his people. Think of it, a young boy leaving to go and fight for his people just like that. Do you not know that there are many old people who did not even dream of fighting for their people when they were young? Old people whose knees weaken when the white people say come here or run there. But many young people of these days are not like that. I do not know what has become of the milk from the breasts of today’s mothers. It must be very angry because it is only the young who are running away so that they can come back. Running away to come back like the sun. It runs away in darkness so that it can return with more light. My father said it runs away when the light inside finishes early: it runs away to the woman who has the flame stick which can be used to light it again. This is what the young people are doing.

  But my sister, have you heard the stories people were spreading about the children when they came back? Some said their shoes pointed the other way when they are going one way. Some said their bodies were so strong the bullets of the soldiers did not go through their skins. All sorts of things like the one about how the fighters disappeared when the soldiers came. They said all the women became heavy with children, so when the soldiers came, they would not beat up pregnant women. After they left, all the women just passed some air and there the fighters were. Can you believe that? When you hear such things you begin to know that the heads of people are full of many things.

  Marita, she tells stories as easily as she breathes. Just like that. Look at those rocks, my sister, Marita says. The story of how they came to stand like that is very interesting.

  Your father must have told you the story when you were young. But the way the rocks stand there like bulls threatening you is very frightening. They say the white people take much time playing, climbing up the rocks and giving each other rewards for that. Such things should not be done for reward. Otherwise how do we give rewards to the one who made the rocks the way they are? How can you give a reward for one who uses the axe instead of one who made the axe? The things white people do are very strange. They are like children in many ways. Do you know that Manyepo takes his gun when his head sends him to do so and goes to the forest to hunt? What does he do? He kills many animals and leaves them to rot in the forest. You might say he likes to leave the meat for the jackals, but what does he have to do with jackals? And to leave all of it? It is very strange the way Manyepo does things. He does not even bring meat for the workers, no. He just kills many animals and takes a few pictures of them dying. Chisaga, the cook, says there are many pictures of elephants and kudu in Manyepo’s house, hanging on the walls. If I were an ancestor, my sister, I would make him shoot himself one day so that he will know that death is a painful thing. The ancestors punish those who kill what they do not eat. Do you not know that a snake bites itself after receiving a small wound because it is in the habit of biting what it does not eat?

  Behind those hills, Marita said, the earth turned red so that the people began to see blood all over the place. Even the trees grew red leaves smeared with blood. That is the land of the chief who accepts to eat a little of the left-overs from the white man’s table. The chief was like that for many years until the fighters came to him and asked him if he himself was a left-over. The chief said, No, how can I be a left-over when I am a chief? They said he should have known that if one is a left-over, one eats left-overs. If he is not a left-over, why does he eat the left-overs of those everybody knows are wrong? Did the white people of the government not say that the people from the villages will not rule for one thousand years? Now, what makes you, chief, think that you do not come from the villages? Since you are a chief, is it not true that you are the leader of the villagers? Then the chief panics when he sees the gun in the big coat which the fighter wears. He pleads with them, My children, do not kill me. I will not do it again. I am only eating what I can before I die. If I die before I eat everything which my appetite tells me to eat, I will not join the ancestors of my people. Let me try again because if I fail, I will come on my own and ask you to kill me the way you like. Please do not cut my head yet. I am a healthy man, and healthy people must not die.

  The fighters leave him to go home without making any promises. Then after a few days of walking and seeing with their own eyes the poverty of the people, they decide they cannot wait much longer. The people did not have much to give to them. If the fighters do not feed, Marita says, they will stop fighting and go working in the fields. But they had seen so much poverty that it became harsh to their eyes. Let us leave, they said to each other. Let us look for better areas where there are fields that can give something to the farmers. Our hopes will die if we continue to see children dying every day and the cattle licking the soil as if it contains salt. We have learnt that we must free our people from poverty. Poverty is worse than war, they say. You can stop war through talking. You can’t stop poverty through talking. So we must fight with all we have so that our people cannot continue to be buried in this ant-hill of poverty.

  So the fighters moved on, but before they had gone very far, many aeroplanes coloured like leaves covered the whole sky like the locusts the old people still talk about. The aeroplanes made so much noise that the rocks shook and rolled down the hills.

  Then the aeroplanes surrounded the fighters, and many soldiers dropped from the sky like leaves, but with guns to kill all the fighters they could find. They came and shot like madmen, aiming at the goats, the fighters, the boulders, the trees, the air, everywhere. Then the fighters also fired their guns. The fight went on until the following day. But the fighters were not many, the soldiers were many. Do you know that it is easier to hit many people with a single stone than it is to hit one with one stone? The fighters died, many of them. But the soldiers died also. So many that the rocks and the trees were smeared with blood. Some of the flying machines fell to the ground, making such a big fire that many villagers could warm themselves even during the cold night, without anybody asking anybody to move this way and that way. It was very bad, many people dying like that. But it told the people that the fighters were not like anybody who is in this land visiting their relatives. Do you know that nobody was allowed to see those who had died? It was said that many lorries made many trips to carry dead bodies to a burial place. We never knew whose sons they were, but we knew that there would be much mourning in many villages. It was only after the rains had fallen that villagers were allowed to walk through the place. Many say the place still smells of death, so it is not a good place to pick firewood or to go to the bush to help yourself. Many of the few fighters died. It is said only two or three managed to run away with their lives. They came back after many months and said … that was war, that was the way to fight. Fight and run away so that you can wake up the following morning to try and come back and fight again. They said singers in far countries had sung songs, songs of running away and coming back to fight again. Fight again so that the fight is not finished until new fighters join to take over where it was left. The suffering of a fighter is a medal, they said. You, our parents, were told to baptise your children with water so that they can enter the kingdom of god. But we, the fighters of the land of our people, now tell you to baptise your children with the pain of war so that they can live to fight for ever until the enemy surrenders. If you are taken and hit by the soldiers, do not think of giving up. Think that you have been given a medal to carry on the fight without fear. How can people fear death when they are dying slowly in poverty, disease and ignorance? A people that fears death will never enjoy freedom from the heavy chains of being called boys by people of the same age, men and women. To refuse to die for the motherland is to refuse to wear the medal of birth which gave us this land.

  … So the fighters would speak long into the night so that those who are friendly with sleep would be struggling to hear a little of those things the fighters were saying.

  Marita says all these things as if she was there. She said the fighters would never stop talking even if the meeting went on for a whole year. They always had new things to say. If they had nothing to say, they had something to sing. If they had nothing to sing, they had something to dance. It was such a fascinating thing that all the people began to think they also needed their own guns to go and kill the next white man. But the fighters said the fight was not with the white man, it was with the bad things he had in his palms. If a child has dirt in his palm, do we cut away his palm in order to get the dirt off it? No, we take the child, spank his bottom a little bit. If the child wants to eat the dirt, we take a stick to punish the child harder. If the child takes another stick to fight back, we then take a bigger stick and punish the child and overpower it. Now, the white man has refused to remove the dirt in his clenched fist. So we have to take a stick and whip the white man. One day the white man will say … Come my friends, you are not evil people. You are people who know the difference between dirt and cleanliness. Tell us what cleanliness is all about because we have stayed with dirt for many years without knowing that it was the dirt which stinks …

  As Marita tells me these things her face winces, her eye flickers like a little flame. She tells me these things because she says, ‘You people of the city do not know what war was all about.’ She says, ‘People of the city are spoilt with soft foods so they think that life is soft. People of the city look at their watches and then leave work without finishing any task. This is not so with people on the farms and the villages. They work until they finish this or that before they can catch the next meal. For people of the villages, to eat is to look for life, but for people of the towns, to eat is to look for something to do. The city is a wild place where many things lose purpose,’ Marita tells me with a sternness that says I am part of her but I do not know what her life is all about. You know, Marita has hard palms which cannot crack easily. She has had a hard life. It does not shame her any more to take off her shoes in the bus. If the feet are painful, the shoes have to be removed. It does not need any explanation to anybody. But the people of the city first tell everybody that their toes are pricking them and can they take off their shoes without offending anybody? ‘Can you think of it, sister?’ Marita says. ‘People of the city are strange. A lot has gone into their heads. So much has gone into their heads that to clean them is very difficult. Very difficult for anybody to do.’

  Then, when we got to the city, Marita fell dumb just like that. She simply looked at the tall buildings and gasped for breath as if she was worrying about how to get her son. She only said, ‘I will find him,’ and shut her mouth as if all had been lost. She shut her mouth until she went wherever she went without saying a word to me. Then I saw what she had inside her chest. The things of inside the heart cannot be read by too many people. They burn inside like a big fire which people cannot know how to put out.

  If the birds and insects refused to sing, what would the forest be?

  *

  ‘Can I take the body with me now? I have told you what nobody else knows, can I take the body of the woman whom nobody knows? The body of the woman whom nobody knows. It is bad not to be known by anyone in this big city.’

  ‘Mother, I do not know how I can help you. I do not know how, honestly.’

  The young man wipes away the tears in his eyes and looks the other way as if a bad wind has hit his face. His large head is sombre now, but the sun shines on both him and the frail old woman who sits there and pleads with him. She does not look at the sun or at the clock on the wall as he does. She sits there as if she is there to sit for ever and will never stand up. He utters something which she cannot hear properly, but she knows that talking does not help much. She knows that she has passed the stage of talking and quarrelling, but she will wait for an answer which she has come for, from the place where fighters were wiped off the face of the land because her husband had sold out on them. Innocent fighters, but she had only known that it was her husband who did it long after they had died, long after they had buried him too.

  11

  The Unknown Woman

  There is a woman who sits patiently by the door of the house where they keep dead bodies so that they do not grow worms. Bad smells come out every time they open to bring out a new corpse or to take in another one. Bad smells which punch the face like the blow of a mad man. But the woman sits there, enduring. She waits for the corpse for which no one mourns. The one that is unmourned. Not those which someone knows. No. They are good corpses whose death has been watched by someone whose ear listened to the last words from those dying unmoving lips which even the flies avoid. She waits for the unmourned one inside the house where they keep corpses so that they do not grow worms. Worms are bad things. They come from nowhere and eat everything just like that. Even in the grave it is said worms will visit a corpse and eat it before they see there is nowhere to go. Worms are bad things. But there are some good ones which can make good food if you know how to cook them.

  A truck full of men in colourless uniforms comes to a stop near the door of the house where they keep corpses so that worms do not grow inside them. A truck with clean-shaven men whose heads are as round as beans. Very round heads. They say bad things about people who die without anybody knowing them. They curse and spit, but their vulgar words do not escape her ears. She takes them as she has taken them before, without raising a finger or an eyebrow. It is as it should be. When a lion roars, ignore it and it will not maul you. Run away and it will be eating your insides before the neighbours are able to come to your rescue. Let them say what is within them, even without shame. When a mouth dances too much, know that what is there is not much. She gazes at them as if they are shadows of people from a bad dream. The flies on the door of the house where corpses are kept move. They know that they will have another chance to do what they have done before. The man with the keys to the house comes, walking carelessly without respect for the bodies inside. He says a few shameful words, but his eyes do not have either shame or fear for the dead.

 

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