by Bessie Head
It was about all this that the old man talked to Makhaya on their hour and a half walk to the village of Golema Mmidi. The village had no post office, and Dinorego had come to the railway village to take out some of his savings and purchase provisions that he could not buy in his village. When he had bought everything he needed, he put the provisions into a flour bag and slung it over his shoulder. The road they took ran parallel with the railway line, and once again it was just the thornbush on either side and the blue sky. Makhaya noticed that the old man had an odd way of walking. It was a quick shuffle, a propelled shuffle as though a small private windstorm was pushing him from behind, and his speech too had the odd propelled quality of his walk.
“It’s not right,” said Dinorego. “A well-educated man should not be stranded in our country. But you will find that things happen slowly here. They say this is a country where people ought not to live and it is true. Batswana people often go without food and water and so do their cattle. Cattle are grazed where a bit of grass grows, but water may only be found ten miles away. Life is like this: you graze cattle here one day; the next, you take them on a long search for water. It is such a hard life that I myself long ago gave up the cattle business. In all my years I have known of only one man who think he can change it. His name is Gilbert. He came to our village three years ago and started the cattle cooperative. Also a farm to try out better way of crop growing, and it is from this I mostly benefit as I only grow crops.”
Dinorego stopped abruptly, put down his bundle and spread his hands out to explain himself more clearly. Makhaya listened in his absorbed, attentive way, a faint smile on his face.
“A Batswana man thinks like this: ‘If there is a way to improve my life, I shall do it.’ He may start by digging a well with a spade. He digs and digs, slowly moving the earth to one side with a spade. When it has become too deep, he sets up two poles in the earth with a pole on top and a handle. To this he attaches a rope and a bucket. Then he sends his son down into the well. The son digs and digs, each time sending up the earth in the bucket. At last water is found. Now, along comes someone and tells the man about rainwater dams that are made with scrapers. So the man inspans the oxen and makes a dam for watering his cattle by removing the earth with a scraper. That is how he progresses. Each time he feels he has improved himself a little, he is ready to a try a new idea.
“In my village, people have long been ready to try out new ideas, but everything is delayed because of the fight that is going on between our chief and Gilbert. First of all the fight was about who is the good man and who is the evil man, though everyone well knows who the evil man is. In spite of this, many secret things were done to damage and delay the starting of the farm and cattle co-operative. Last year the secrets all came out into the open in the battle over Pelotona, the permit man. It is the rule that a permit must be written out for every beast that is sold. Before Gilbert came, Pelotona used to work for the chief because he was the big cattle speculator of the village. A cattle speculator works like this: a man brings his beast to him which he looks over and then says, ‘Oh, I shall pay you six pounds for that beast.’ But in his heart he knows he will get sixteen or twenty pounds for the same beast at the abattoir. This is the only way that a poor man may sell cattle because he cannot order railway trucks to transport his cattle. On this business our chief became very rich, then along came Gilbert with a new idea: the cattle co-operative belongs to the people and each member is to get a fair price. To get this fair price each beast is weighed on a scale and the owner is paid the same live weight as would be given by the abattoir. Seeing this good fortune, the whole village joined the cattle co-operative, putting our chief out of business.
“Now, Pelotona is a free man. He had a change of mind and walked over to work for Gilbert. The next thing our chief placed a banishment order on Pelotona, which made Pelotona straightaway run to our chief’s brother Sekoto, who is also his superior. The chief’s brother came over and said, ‘You need not think because you are my relative that you can do what you like.’ People were also much surprised to see a white woman come over from England and say in a very loud voice: ‘Pelotona stays right here. We are paying his salary.’ All this commotion over a poor and humble man like Pelotona.”
There was a short silence. Makhaya was very moved by the vividly told little story, and there was a kind of defiance in the man Gilbert that found an echo in his own heart.
“Tell me more about Gilbert,” he said quietly. “He interests me.”
“I have no words to describe Gilbert, son,” Dinorego said. “Just as I take you as my own son, so do I take Gilbert as my own son, which fact surprises me, since he is a white man and we Batswanas do not know any white people, though some have lived here for many years. Many things caused me to have a change of mind. He can eat goat meat and sour-milk porridge, which I have not known a white man to eat before. Also, whenever there is trouble he comes to me and says, ‘Dinorego, should I stay here?’ which fills my heart with fire since I am just an old man with no power. I reasoned: If Gilbert goes, who will pour out knowledge like rain? Everybody is selfish and wants to keep what he has to himself. There was my friend, Mma-Millipede, who had fifty-two fowls. They were wandering free, being eaten by the eagles. I took her myself to Gilbert. He says, ‘If you have fifty-two fowls you must build a coop, fifteen feet by twenty-five feet. Make it six feet high. Keep one cockerel for every fifteen hens. Never keep more than two or three broody hens in the coop at one time. Buy egg-laying mash…’ and so on. Mma-Millipede now always has eggs for sale.”
The old man was silent awhile, then continued, “In this world are both evil and good men. Both have to do justice to their cause. In this country there is a great tolerance of evil. It is because of death that we tolerate evil. All meet death in the end, and because of death we make allowance for evil though we do not like it.”
“I might like it here,” Makhaya said, wistfully.
“This country appeals to few people,” said Dinorego. “There is too much loneliness. I stay alone with my youngest child. Her name is Maria. She likes all things modern. Because of this she is also taking lessons from Gilbert in English. One day she was looking at pictures in a book which Gilbert gave her. There was a kitchen with shelves. So she carved the shelves in the mud wall. Then, too, she cooks goat meat with curry powder and this improves its taste. Now all the women round about have shelves in their kitchens and cook the meat with curry powder.”
There was an abrupt change in the scenery. The low wild thornbush suddenly gave way to acres and acres of cleared land, cultivated for ploughing. Perching on the outer borders of each plot were small groups of mud huts. At a railway siding, they crossed over the line and walked along a wide path that had been scraped by a bulldozer. The pathway wound and curved into the distance, and in the distance two low blue hills met and swept down to each other. At a fork in the road, a few tall, slender trees lined the pathway. Dinorego took the turning to the left.
“If you follow the other road,” Dinorego said, “you will soon come to the farm and cattle co-operative. This is our village. It is called Golema Mmidi, which means ‘to grow crops’.”
A narrow footpath led through the trees which were planted by the old man on a slope that led down to his home. The short walk through the trees made Makhaya feel that the sudden clearing ahead of ploughed land was immense. Three huts stood nearby in a wide yard hedged with thornbush.
A young woman bent over sweeping the yard with a grass broom.
“Maria,” the old man called. “I have a guest.”
Those were familiar words to the young woman. Her father never seemed able to step out of his own village without bringing back a stranger. She straightened her back, glanced briefly at the tall stranger, and noticed immediately that he had the tired look of one who had travelled a long distance.
Perhaps he will want some water to wash, she thought. It’s a good thing I kept the big water pot near the fire.
&nbs
p; She dropped the broom and walked quickly to one of the central huts and came out with two hand-carved stools which she placed on the ground for the men to sit on. Dinorego introduced her to Makhaya. She bent her knees in a slight curtsy and clasped two small hands together in the Tswana form of greeting.
“Tea will soon be ready,” she said. “Would the guest like water to wash?”
It was the crisp clear voice of a busy, preoccupied, self-absorbed woman, and there was an almighty air of neatness and orderliness about her. She was very thin with a long pretty neck on which was poised a serious, quiet face, and her small black eyes never seemed to gaze outward, but inward. In fact, she was often in the habit of staring meditatively at the ground. Makhaya was instantly attracted to her.
Thunderous footsteps made Makhaya swing sharply around. This made the old man laugh.
“It’s Gilbert,” he said. “He always surprises people because no one expects such a big man.”
He was not big, he was a giant, and his massive frame made him topple forward slightly and sway as he walked. He never wore much except short khaki pants and great hobnailed boots, and because of this, the sun had burned him a dark brown hue, and this in turn accentuated the light-blue colouring of his eyes so that they glittered. Life never seemed to offer enough work for his abundant energy, and his gaze forever restlessly swept the horizon seeking some new challenge, while at the same time his mind and hands could busy themselves with the most immediate and insignificant details in a continuous flow of activity like a wave. Thus, having already included Makhaya and Dinorego in his horizon, he walked straight into the central hut, said something that made Maria laugh, and came out almost immediately with a stool and the tea tray.
“Dinorego,” he said, pleasantly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going into town? I could have given you a lift, as I wanted to go in too to buy a new mantle for my lamp.”
“It’s a good thing I did not ask for a lift, Gilbert,” the old man said. “Today I was meant to acquire a new son. His name is Makhaya.”
Gilbert held out his hand and smiled widely, easily. “Hullo, Mack…” he stumbled as he had not really grasped the sound of it.
“It’s just a tribal name,” Makhaya said, smiling at his embarrassment. “You can call me Mack if you like.”
The words, “It’s just a tribal name,” caused an instant pause in the activity of the wave. To Gilbert, it was the first real hand-clasp he had experienced in the loneliness in which he found himself in tribal Africa. He stared at Makhaya, taking in the quiet, wryly amused expression and the air of lonely self-containment.
“Are you a stranger in this country?” he asked.
“Yes,” Makhaya said, then added, “I also ought to be passing through because I’m a refugee.”
“To where?” Gilbert asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Makhaya said.
Gilbert said nothing, yet the expression on his face went blank the way it always did when someone aroused sympathy in him.
Maria came up and said very formally to Makhaya, “Sir, the water for your wash is ready.”
Makhaya picked up his bag and followed her to one of the huts. Gilbert turned to Dinorego and said, “He’s quite a strange fellow.”
“Not only that, Gilbert,” the old man said quickly. “He has some wonderful ideas. When I first met him he said ‘A man comes to the crossroads. The one road leads to fame and the other to peace of mind. Is there peace of mind for a man like me?’ And I straight away thought: ‘This is the very man my son Gilbert has been looking for to help him in his work. Since he is a well-educated man perhaps they can have some understanding.’ What do you think?”
He blinked innocently at Gilbert.
Gilbert kept quiet for a moment, then said, decisively, “I’ll invite him to have supper with me.”
Gilbert gazed thoughtfully into the distance. The quietly amused words, “It’s just a tribal name,” kept on recurring to him. He needed, more than anything, someone with the necessary mental and emotional alienation from tribalism to help him accomplish what he had in mind. Three years of uphill battling had already made clear to him his own limitations in putting his ideas across to people, and he had also learned that change, if it was to take place at all, would in some way have to follow the natural course of people’s lives rather than impose itself in a sudden and dramatic way from on top. He hadn’t the kind of personality that could handle people, because everything in him was submerged to the work he was doing. He lacked sympathy, patience and understanding, and there were all those weird conflicts he had had with Matenge that had kept him lying awake at night. There seemed to be no escape from the man, but what had contributed more than anything else to those sleepless nights was his own inability to understand the workings of an extremely cunning and evil mind, a mind so profoundly clever, as to make the innocent believe they are responsible for the evil.
As soon as Makhaya emerged from the hut, Gilbert stood up and said abruptly, “Would you care to have supper with me? I’d like to talk to you.”
Gilbert led the way out of the yard, up the slope and through the trees. A flock of goats suddenly appeared, herded home by a small boy. The sun had already set, and as though they knew this, the goats flicked their tails briskly and rolled anxious yellow eyes at the two men watching them as much as to say: “We are late, but one day we will stop and talk.” The small boy waved, walking in the same manner as the briskly trotting goats.
As though he understood goat-talk, Gilbert laughed happily. He said to Makhaya, “Botswana goats amaze me. They just walk about eating all this dry paper and bits of rubble and then turn it into meat and milk.”
They walked on and soon came to the wide pathway which forked with a turning to the left and one to the right: Gilbert took the turn to the right and they arrived at a big gate, roughly made of tautly strung barbed wire. Gilbert lifted the wire latch and swung the gate open, and then closed it again once Makhaya was inside. He raised one hand and said gaily:
“This is Utopia, Mack. I’ve the greatest dreams about it.”
And all that Makhaya could see of Utopia in the dimming light was the outline of several mud huts. Near one of these was parked a Land-Rover and to this hut Gilbert walked. He pushed open the door and struck a match to light a lamp. The interior was simply furnished with a bed in one corner, a table, two chairs and some boxes on which were strewn, in haphazard order, books and magazines. Makhaya sat down on one of the chairs while Gilbert pumped a paraffin stove which stood on the floor in a corner of the hut. Supper was to be a few tins of canned food emptied into a pot and heated briefly over the stove and then poured out roughly on to two plates. But while he busied himself, Gilbert chatted about this and that.
“I like it here,” he said. “I’m running away from England. You know what England’s like? It’s full of nice, orderly queues, and everybody lines up in these queues for a place and position in the world. I let all that go hang and hopped out.”
He paused and looked at Makhaya with a friendly glance. “What exactly are you running away from?”
“It’s not so much what I’m running away from,” Makhaya said. “It’s what I’m trying to run into. I want a wife and children.”
Gilbert looked half-surprised and half-amused at this unexpected reply.
Makhaya laughed. “I want some part of myself to go on when I die,” he said. “And since I found myself so near death over the past two years, I thought it best to find a wife before I found anything else.”
“Are you that simple?” Gilbert asked, and laughed too.
“Yes,” Makhaya said.
“I don’t know if the same applies to me,” Gilbert said, suddenly thoughtful. “Ninety per cent of the time I don’t want a woman. Then also there’s that ten per cent when I’m lonely, but I don’t know of any woman who’d go for the ten per cent.”
“She would,” Makhaya said. “But provided she had a life of her own too.”
Gilbert lo
oked at him with an almost childlike innocence. “You seem to be quite an expert.”
Makhaya averted his face in discomfort. He could not explain that experiences went hand in hand with a depth of bitterness and resentment because he did not fully understand the root cause of an attraction that had made women pursue him; that if love was basically a warm fire in you, you attracted all the cold people who consumed your fire with savage greed leaving you deprived and desolate. The robbery he recognized but not the cause.
“I have sisters,” Makhaya said at last. “Also, there have been women and women in my life, I suppose because I searched for them.”
They were silent for a while, eating. Then Gilbert said quietly:
“Would you say, from what you’ve seen of her today, that Dinorego’s daughter was one of those women who had a life of her own?”
Makhaya did not reply immediately. He thought of the small black inward-grazing eyes and the pretty air of preoccupied self-absorption. He’d have liked a woman like that. She might have so easily become a part of his inner harmony and peace he was striving for. But an instinct warned him to push the dream away from him. Three years was a long time and he was a stranger to it all.
“Yes,” he said, slowly. “I’d say she’s that kind of woman.”