Leave Marita alone. The flower that does not bloom should not gain credit because of the flower that blooms next to it. The white pumpkin invited the hungry eyes of the half-blind old woman to the darker one which is riper. Ripe, yes, ripe. Marita is not a tree you can lean on. She is not the fire where you can warm yourself happily because the firewood of her blood is not the firewood of good blood. To lean on her is to lean on a decaying stump … my mother says. Whenever her mouth opens, Marita is the meat that she chews. Marita is the dried meat of a bad animal that she chews. Think of it, Marita.

  Marita, Chisaga did bad things to me. He said the pots and plates you left me spoke more than a child like me could understand. ‘You will understand one day,’ he said. ‘A child does not know the sweetness of life until it sprouts a beard,’ he said, as he munched the left-overs of the food from Manyepo’s house. Manyepo gives him food which has been left after satisfying his own hunger. But Chisaga eats it as if it had been cooked by god. If god cooked anything, then we would have ashes for rain.

  I laugh at all this, Marita, but I think my own mother was behind what Chisaga did to me. ‘Go and fetch us some water,’ she said, the corner of her eye glittering like a star torn away from the sky by the angry hand of god. ‘Go and fetch us some water. Your father will wash very soon and there will be no water left to drink. Hurry up so that the sun does not get there first. Run like a child brought up by people. Run.’ So I ran before the sun touched the tree near Manyepo’s field of beans whose taste you know well. I ran because I was alone and the bird near the hill was beginning to howl the ominous song that you said means there is nothing good in life. Remember the bird with a head as sharp as a knife. That is the one. It sings those songs again these days. So I run, cutting the long shadows of the trees without doing them any harm. You know it is hard to injure a shadow, Marita. Shadows do not cry. Only people and birds cry, Marita. If other things cry, we do not know the language of their cry.

  I run with all the power within me because darkness is full of things you cannot see. My heart says darkness is a bad thing because people say it is the blanket of evil. ‘A dark husband is bad,’ the women sing from the well, ‘I might mistake him for the cooking pot.’ You might laugh, Marita, but there are things which one must learn not to laugh at. It is like that.

  On my way back, Marita, water dripping over my ears, licking my face like a little cat, I hear the movement of a small bush. I think it is the lizard thinking some small animal is after its tail. Then a little twig breaks like maize cracking in the hot pot. Then I see the shadow of a man with a beard that is learning to grow. I see him again following me. Then I think it is my eyes which are full of the things which many lips have told me for many years.

  ‘Why do you walk on as if you cannot see me? It is me, the one you dream about always. Do not fear because I am the one you have always known will be your …’

  ‘My what? Who are you?’ I say with the fear welling up in me like Manyepo’s dam filling up soon after the rains have died down.

  ‘Did a woman not give you pots and other things which make a woman a woman?’ he said, trying to hold my hand.

  ‘Leave my hand alone,’ I shout at him.

  ‘You are not a child anymore. Look at the boneless horns on your chest. Any man would take it as a gift from the ancestors to have you share your breath with him. Just listen to me and all our lives will be happiness. Happiness will flow in your father’s house like a stream full with the rains. It will see light always, no darkness. Even the hard work which your parents do will melt away like the hailstones which melt soon after they have fallen.’

  ‘I do not like what you are saying; maybe if you let me go things will be better for me. I know you cook for the white man, but to carry a gun does not mean you are a hunter. You and your wife can eat all the good things which the white man makes in his house but we have no hunger for such things. We eat what we can eat without any shame at all. So if you think that cooking for the white man makes my inside glow with envy, you are thinking wrong things.’

  ‘Now listen to me. You make any noise and your body will be found in the dam after the dam has dried. You are my wife and I will sleep with you now. Do you not know what you and Marita did to make me miserable? I am the tree that never forgets its wounds while the axe sits at home smiling after a day of eating into the tree’s flesh.’

  Then I do not know what happened, Marita. The police came and took me to their camp, but my mother said, ‘The man who did it is the child’s friend. We like him, so do not put him in jail. The only problem is that the child felt the first pains of pleasure. That is why she came to tell you the story. We like Chisaga very much. He eats here every day. He is not a bad man …’ So the police shook their heads and went to Manyepo. Manyepo threw his hands into the air with anger. ‘My cook cannot do such things. Leave him alone or I will drive to the District Commissioner. You catch Maringi and Chatora, the bastards have given enough trouble to my workers. You catch them and bring them here. I will castrate the bloody fools in front of everybody …’ That was the end, Marita. That was the end of the hornbill’s journey. The wind had taken the hornbill to the wrong destination. So I sit here alone with the wounds which my mother thinks will give me pleasure one day. Blood flowing all the time, hurting my inside as I think of the day they brought you, Marita, worn out with abuse, worn out like an old piece of cloth, torn inside, torn like a worthless thing that nobody cares about.

  To the medicine-man, my mother said I had too many bad things in my head. She says my head is full of lizards, worms, snails, bad roots and half-moons. She says the things I say in my sleep must never be heard from the lips of one so young. Things that make the chest swell, the heartbeat and the hair of the head move like the beard of a cat. She hears me sing songs only mad people sing, she says, songs that say the earth is bad, that trees talk to people but people do not listen, things never said by a healthy tongue … Give her some herbs to calm her mind, give her some herbs to steady her down so that she can grow up to be a good woman. It is a shame if a young woman like this grows up to be a flame in the village. The farm is not a good place for the illness which she has now. But what can we do, no one would choose to keep her in the village because all the relatives think my husband has used bad herbs on her so that he can get a better job on the farm. The things that workers will do to get favours from the baas boy. People are bad when they work for someone because they kill so many unknown things so that they can get favours. Some men sleep with their own mothers in order for things of the earth to favour them … she says. She thinks I ruin her nights because my head does not like darkness any more. In the dark I see many dark faces creeping towards me, coming as shadows to entice me to do bad things. But I won’t let them do these bad things to me. I scream and shout so that all those near me can come and help me. I scream so that everybody can know the coals that are burning inside me. When fire burns inside a person, it must be put out. Put out the fire inside the chest, the fire that burns without being seen is dangerous. People will think all is well, all is flowing smoothly like the water of the big river, but if they listen closely they will hear the thunder that is there. But the darkness remains the darkness of one person. You can’t say to the hill go away and it goes away. The same with the darkness of the heart, you cannot tell it to go away with your mouth like that. So my mother thinks the herbs will help one day, many roots whose source I do not know. Bitter roots that I have to take so that I do not continue to die.

  Marita, you told me sad stories of the wounds of your heart. Many wounds which no one can see. Wounds cut with big knives and machetes. I listened because I saw them. Now I have no one to listen to me. I have only the blood which I saw smeared on your black thighs. Thighs roughened with hard work in Manyepo’s fields. A face stern, with stories found in the many cracks of the face. Did you not say every crack on the face of a farm worker is an endless story? Maybe it is good to have stories, but it is better to have people to share them with. I am young like a small maize plant; if a maize plant is alone in the forest, why does it not grow? Why does it not ripen like the tree in whose shadow it is growing? It cannot grow because it is alone. It has no one to talk to.

  Tears are not water. They must not be seen every day. They are not water. The well of tears is not visited by anyone. No one knows the colour and shape of the well of tears. If tears are seen every day, things are bad inside, Marita. Things are bad. Dark things that eat you from inside until you grow as thin as me. They say there is a worm that wriggles inside the heart of troubles. The worm eats all the courage that is left so one cries all the time. To cry all the time is bad for the body. This is why people ask, ‘What is wrong?’ when you cry. ‘Who has beaten you? Tell us who has beaten you so that we can go and beat him also.’ It is not good to cry all the time, Marita. People say that much crying will soon mean death. Crying and death are friends, Marita. They are friends. Wherever crying is found, death is up the tree ready to jump down so that people can change the tune of their cry. Death is happy when people cry. Death smiles when he sees tears roll down the young cheeks of a girl who has suffered what Chisaga has done to me. Chisaga tore me to shreds, and all that bleeding just because he wanted to satisfy his desires. I wanted to go and put poison in Chisaga’s food, the white poison Manyepo uses to kill insects in his garden. But my heart said no, it might kill all the children from the smallest to the biggest. After all, Chisaga eats on the table of his baas. It is bad to be the way I am, Marita, but I still have time to think what to do. He sees me all the time and smiles his fat smile like a dog that has seen a bitch on heat. It is not good to hate and do nothing about it. It eats me inside like that thing which looks like a rat but is too blind to come out to look for food, so it eats the soil underneath. It eats the soil until the ground is full of holes. This is what it is, Marita.

  ‘Mother, why did you take me to the herbalist?’ I ask again and again. But mother would not listen to me. She screams and says I know more than I should know.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘But the herbalist is a bad man. Last time when you left me with him he wanted to do bad things with me. “That is part of the treatment,” he says. But I tell him Chisaga did bad things to me, that is why I walk with much hardship. He laughs and says I will be all right, every woman has that once a month. Do not worry about that, he chuckles as if it pleases him to see blood come out of me that way. Then after many days he sees that the blood comes out all the time, flowing until I am very weak. He gazes at me and says I am an evil woman who could kill a man any time. He asks me to go home alone since he cannot cure me properly.

  ‘Try another herbalist,’ he says. ‘There are many herbalists in this part of the land.’ He packs his roots and bones and goes to his wife’s house, leaving me alone as if I have a bad smell which can kill his nostrils. And at night when I cry with loneliness, he comes to the door and burns a few herbs whose smell is disgusting. He says a few words in a language I do not know, then spits through the door and curses. Then I take courage and say to myself soon it will be day so that I can walk to my own mother even if the pain kills me on the way. Before sunrise I walk away from the house of bad roots and ominous bones so that I can see my own mother before I die. Later when he discovers that I have gone away, he runs to the village, shouting that his patient has escaped. ‘Help me look for her. I do not know the kind of evil spirit in this one. I do not understand how such a vicious evil spirit can enter the soul of such a young girl. Come, help me look for her because when her mother comes here, I will not know how to tell her such a story,’ he feverishly calls all the villagers.

  Marita, it is sunset now, I hear the bones inside me creaking with the spirit of walking which is in me. They creak like the ribs of an old scotch-cart without grease. But I have to walk on until I can see my mother. I want to see her so that I can spit in her face before I leave her. She always thinks I am looking for a husband so that I can make grandchildren for her. This is why she sends me to all sorts of herbalists, cruel people who do not know the pain in me, the seeds of pain inside me. It is sunset, Marita. The smell of new leaves tells me that there are other things which are good. Even the birds which jump up and down from the nests of their little ones, they are my friends. They give me the power to go on so that I can spit on the face of my mother. As for my father, his head is numb all the time. Whenever he wants to say something, mother shouts him down like a child. So he keeps to his silence as if that silence were anything to hide in. There are many sores on my heart, Marita. Now that you are dead, the thorns in my heart eat into my whole body so that I no longer feel the pain. Thorns with the medicine of all the pain. It is sunset, Marita, the red of the sky washes me. I walk slowly because of the pain between my legs, but I know I will get there. I will follow the way you walked, a path so full of thorns no one thought you were going to get to the city. But you got there and saw many things before you died. Before they killed you. I do not know how they killed you, but you were there with them, searching for the seed of your womb, the blood that you poured out from your own gourd.

  Yes, the mother gourd must look for the child-gourd, tracing the footsteps of the child-gourd until the final reunion. No matter how big the eaglet is, it waits for the mother eagle to come back from the sky with a worm in its belly so that the big child-eagle can eat the blood of the mother eagle. That is the way to know the tree of life. Leaves fall to the ground, rot in the soil, the roots drink from the rotten leaves and feed the inside of the tree again so that new leaves can sprout, new buds that cannot stand on their own feet until the seed decays to feed new plants near the old mother plant. That way people are also made. Marita, look for your leaves so that they will not say you did not feed the roots of the plant for the sake of new leaves. Even puppies know it. Puppies, Marita, the little dogs that are born without eyes to see light. Light must not be seen too early, Marita. Light must be seen by steady eyes so that all can see it and remain with calm inside. It is only for the sake of calm inside that the sun must not be seen too early. The weakness of young ones is good. It is good for the young ones. They must not see the sun too early. No, it can kill them because the sun is sometimes harsh. Harsh with eyes that see it too early. Manyepo says so too when the maize starts to grow. It must not see the sun too early. A little sun, yes. But all the sun, no. Those who sit with one side of the body in the sun and the other in the shade know what too much sun can do.

  Marita, those who eat the eggs of the hen say the eggs are not good for young mouths. Eggs are good, Marita. Good things are good things. Those who have them always want to make rules so that others cannot get to the good things. If eating eggs is a bad thing it must be so for all mouths, Marita. The hen that has tasted her own eggs never stops to leave some for those who also know that eggs are good. They warm the mouth with new saliva. ‘Good things are not for everybody,’ Manyepo says. Even when he smears good smells on his body, he says not everybody must have those good things because good things are not for everybody. But why does he not allow even the baas boy to smear those good scents on his own body? Or give the baas boy the way to make the rules? Such a rule made by one who already enjoys good things is a bad rule, Marita. A bad rule for those who did not help to make it.

  Mother says I must get married so that cattle can come to her house while she still has good teeth to eat them. But does she not know that when cattle come to her home, I will not have the chance to eat them since I go the other way? What does it help to bring cattle that I do not eat myself? If I cannot eat the cattle that I bring, then it is worthless to bring the cattle to her house. Her husband must learn that the things of one’s sweat are the things which one eats well. Not the things of bad rules. My mother does not know the bones I have swallowed. I have swallowed bones which are big enough for anybody with a big throat. So the things inside me are many, so many that all these dark leaves cannot count them. To eat all those bad medicines and remain with life in me is something that makes me strong. It makes me strong because I know the footprints of bad things. Bad things that come from bad chests through bad mouths whose appetite for bad things grows like mushrooms.

  Baas boy comes to me and says, ‘Little girl, your eyes roam into the hearts of many men, your neck is the neck of a giraffe, your voice is the voice of a turtle dove, why do you always go away from me before I can say the things that prick me inside?’ He growls like an elephant’s stomach which has so many things that one does not know which of them causes the growling. I look at him as I walk away, but the following day he does not tire, he comes with much saliva in his mouth as if I were a mango ripe up there in the tree whose height frightens everybody. ‘My head bursts with desire for you,’ Chisaga says. ‘Remember the pots, the pots from the one who made promises …’ and so the stream flows all the time, leading to I-don’t- know-where. Taking with it the blood and the bones of those whose strength has been defeated, the roots and the leaves of those whose strength has been defeated, the grain of the soil of those whose strength cannot endure.

  I am here, Marita, walking on the footpath of hot embers and hot ashes. I will get there so that I can spit on my mother’s face, that is all. My mother’s face has escaped shame for too many times. To let her think that I am the one to erase poverty from the hearth of her house is to let her eat fire. There is nothing wrong in erasing poverty with one’s sweat of the hands, as she always says with her own mouth. Sweat of the hands is the thing that kills poverty. Sweat of the hands, nothing else. But to sell me to Chisaga or the herbalist like a goat is to cure her wounds with hot pepper. To cure wounds in the mouth with hot pepper.

 

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