by Bessie Head
“You don’t understand, Paulie,” he said. “Poor people are poor because they don’t know how to get rich. I also live in this small dark room and I have counted the change over and over. Now, I’m tired of counting the change. I’m going to be a millionaire. But poverty is like glue. All poor people stick on me and they have to become millionaires with me. By this I mean that there will be no poverty left in Africa by the time I die.”
He sat there in silence. There was much more he wanted to say. There was space enough in her country for the poor to become rich, and the evil that men do to each other was not to be found in such major proportions here. He could feel it and this was at the base of his new feeling of hope and peace. She sat in silence too, while her mind worked in that one-track feminine way. There was a point at which love reached the over-limit stage and then levelled itself out into a still plateau. It was like a nightmare and it was lonely. Yet he kept on adding and adding to the nightmare with his gentle, persuasive speeches.
“Tell me how you will help me to get rich,” she said at last.
Makhaya looked at her in surprise. Millionaire-hood was not a practical reality to him but a strange subconscious process. There would be a day when he would hold out his hand and all the money in the world would fall into it. This he was sure of because his whole life was strained to that point, and he simply left it to his subconsious to do the building, brick by brick. One day, the whole superstructure would be there, glittering with gold walls. Why, he had spent a lifetime absorbing all the tenderness, sorrow, and fear of the world, and there was a web and design in it. He smiled at her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Except that sometimes, I think I am God. I don’t see why God, who owns the whole earth and heaven, should starve. He’ll use his brains, won’t he?”
Paulina hid her face in her hands and laughed. But the next moment she sat up with a jolt. The fire was slowly dying away with no one to attend to it. She jumped up and rushed over with outstretched hands to catch the last, flickering flames and thrust them back vigorously into life again. The thick porridge was done. There was only the goat meat to boil in the weak curry-powder gravy.
She looked over her shoulder at Makhaya mischievously and said, “Will you eat food in my house, God?”
Ten
Matenge came back to Golema Mmidi in mid-August and found himself faced with the progress of mankind. Commoners were up and about everywhere, busy like ants, building dams for themselves. They were also laughing and had some new language up their sleeve, like ‘cash-crops’. This sent Matenge into a fuming rage. Barely ten years ago the commoner had always to approach a chief or sub-chief and ask him for permission to progress. This desire for progress had usually taken the form of wanting to build a small brick house with a tin roof. But brick houses were for chiefs alone, and how could an ordinary commoner want to bring himself up to the level of a chief? Or again, he might desire to set up a borehole for watering his cattle. The chief could say yes or no. If in some demented mood he said yes and then the commoner prospered, it would not be for long. This unfortunate man would one day be notified by the chief that a road was to be built in the pathway of his borehole. Would the commoner please quit? And not so many months after that the chief acquired a new watering place for his cattle.
Although he did not know it, Matenge was a thoroughly cornered rat, partly because his brother was playing football with him, and partly because he was faced with an entirely new situation in Golema Mmidi. There were too many independent-minded people there, and tragedies of life had liberated them from the environmental control of the tribe. Never before had people been allowed to settle permanently on the land as they were doing in Golema Mmidi. In the not so very far back bad old days, those who desired to be permanent farmers had had their huts burned down and been driven pack to the villages. So the cheerful Paramount Chief Sekoto, who casually broke the rules and needed to possess no man’s soul, was perhaps an unconscious assistant of the progress of mankind. But all things are unpredictable under the social structure of African tribalism. It seems to hold within itself terrible and secret currents which are geared toward eternal enmity of the individuals who stand alone; and who knew if one day Chief Sekoto might not turn demented too and unleash a bombshell of destruction on Golema Mmidi.
Matenge’s crises were always silently prepared. No one ever knew what was going on in that lonely mountain-top which was his soul. The village was just presented with his thunderstorms, and their fierceness and savage intensity were the outcome of months of brooding. But he was ailing these days and it took him longer than usual to find his new victim. His dizzy spells alarmed him and he spent many hours quietly relaxing on his porch in his royal purple dressing gown, while he kept his servants dancing up and down in attendance to his needs. Being only servants and anxious to please him, they also kept him informed of all the developments in the village. The name of Paulina Sebeso was frequently mentioned by the servants.
Yet, at this time, a far greater crisis than any Matenge could ever produce was to strike down on the village of Golema Mmidi and the country as a whole. It all began so quietly. The weather was the usual for this time of the year; that is, from mid-August to mid-September the country was suddenly and abruptly plunged into the most intense and stifling heat. Scorching winds, too, blew in from the west, bringing with them huge swirling columns of red desert dust. All this misery was welcomed. The intense heat precipitated the first summer downpour. The old people and cattlemen knew this, and they remained contented in the swirling dust and heat. They never had any calendars but when they looked towards the sky, they knew it was September, the month when the rain clouds gathered. No matter that this was a country of two years of good rain and seven years of drought, the rain clouds always gathered in September.
But September came around and no rain clouds gathered in the sky. At the cattle posts, far out in the bush, the spade-dug wells were drying up, but still the cattlemen were not unduly worried. The huge, hulking, cavernous-bodied, russet brown Tswana cow was a strange beast. No one seems to know of its origin, but everyone knew of its adaptation to the hazards of local climatic conditions and of its ability to go for long periods without food or water. Man and beast had always lived this way. If there was no food or water for a man, then there was nothing for his cattle either. Both were as close to each other as breathing, and it had never been regarded as strange that a man and his cattle lived the same life. No doubt the cattlemen who lived in the lonely, isolated cattle posts at first stared in disbelief when they cattle began dropping dead before their very eyes. There were always droughts. There had been many in each man’s lifetime, but never in the memory of man had the cattle dropped dead. By the time the men panicked, hundreds and thousands of cattle had died.
The truth was no one knew what to do, and the authorities, who by this time were becoming aware of the extent of the tragedy that was taking place in the bush, had no way of establishing communication with the thousands of men at the isolated, unmapped cattle stations. Eventually, all the cattlemen were to be driven out of the bush, overcome by thirst, each trailing behind a few emaciated beasts. But they were a reasoning steady crowd, these cattlemen. They moved slowly and thought slowly, often with a quiet humour. It was reasonable to them that the vultures should gather above a man’s cattle post, for who could bury all these cattle which were dying daily? They watched in calm apprehension as one beast after another toppled dead to the ground. This was reasonable too. When had the dry season ever spanned ten long months? The rain of the previous year had all fallen in November. There had been a day in November when the sky had emptied itself in one long angry downpour. Then all the rain had fled away. But the lack of rain had not troubled the cattlemen. They had their wells along silted-up river beds where the water flowed underground all year round. True enough, the grazing had been burned bone dry by the hot January sun, but they had an ancient belief that bone dry grazing was better for their cattle than fresh
, green grass, wet with dew. Now, nodding their heads they slowly absorbed a new truth: if cattle ate bone dry grass for ten months, a day would arrive when all cattle would drop down dead.
Once they reached this point in their reasoning, all the cattlemen picked up their long sticks and began driving what was left of their herds back to the villages to arrive there with ghastly tales of how the bush was one big graveyard. But the vultures are feasting, they added humorously.
The first wave of cattlemen who had exhausted their reasoning powers arrived in the village of Golema Mmidi in the late afternoon. They hastily erected kraals for their cattle with thorn-bush and instructed their wives to water the cattle sparingly. Then they retired to the yard of one of their fellows, and all sat in a circle on wooden stools, silently drinking bowls of sour milk porridge. Disaster had indeed struck down swiftly on their small world, and each man sat in a mountain of aloof reserve to prevent his fellow from starting the sorrowful tale:
“My friend, I had two hundred cattle just yesterday. Out of this, one hundred and twenty have died. I have just counted the beasts. I now have eighty.”
They had seen the bush strewn with dead cattle on their way home. No one had stopped to look behind at the weak cows who had lain down to calve and die in the process of giving birth. The one thought in each man’s mind had been to hasten home, even if he only had one beast left. Cattlemen could talk about this with humour and resignation to any other person but one of their fellows. It was not long before this group of silent men was joined by that super reasoner, Dinorego. He came into the yard with his cheerful shuffle, holding on to the remnants of his tattered coat. The men moved aside immediately. They respected and trusted no one more deeply than Dinorego. Once the old man had seated himself, the owner of the yard, a tall, taciturn man named Rankoane, threw the stiff, cried-up carcass of a small wild buck into the circle of men.
“Look what I found, my friend,” Rankoane said. “It’s not only the cattle which are dying.”
The big dark eyes of the little animal were wide open, and he lay on his side with his four delicate legs stretched out stiffly, just the way the cattle lay when they dropped down dead. The men stared at it in fascination, really seeing death for the first time – they could not bear to look on their cattle in this posture of death. Rankoane enjoyed this effect. He enjoyed the contemplation of death and was one of the few men who could stare at it boldly. He bent down and removed the carcass and threw it to one side. Dinorego nodded his head several times, profoundly.
“We have received this news some days ago,” he said. “The news came by phone to my son, Gilbert. It was the police officer, George Appleby-Smith, who phoned. He said, ‘Gilbert, do you know of the way cattle and wild beasts are dying in the bush?’ And Gilbert said, ‘I am not surprised. Look at how it rained last year, all on one day in November.’ I was present when this phone call came, and my son Gilbert put down the phone, struck with pity. My heart too was struck with pity. I said, ‘The Good Lord has prevented me from keeping something which dies.’”
The men looked at Dinorego with deep interest. The mention of the name of Gilbert had suddenly filled their hearts with hope, where before had been a passive resignation. No one had any clear idea of why he had headed home except that it seemed the most reasonable thing to do. But they were all members of the cattle cooperative and grearly prided themselves on having joined this new and strange association. Perhaps Gilbert, who had new ideas each day, would tell them what to do with all the cattle they could no longer feed.
“What has Gilbert to say about the deaths?” one of the men prompted tentatively.
Dinorego looked at the men triumphantly. “The rain has not come,” he said. “But still we will plough. Come, let us go and see Gilbert.”
With one abrupt gesture, the men put down their porridge bowls and stood up. Rankoane’s wife, who was watering the cattle nearby, looked at them in amazement. They looked like men about to go into battle, so stern and concentrated were their expressions. Just as they were about to leave the yard, Paulina Sebeso approached them. She clasped her hands politely together in greeting but she was wild with anxiety. She fixed her eyes on Rankoane.
“Please spare a moment, Rra Rankoane,” she said. “I want to ask you something.”
Rankoane detached himself from the group and walked towards her with his angry-looking expression. Rankoane was always rude and offhand to women.
“What is it?” he asked impatiently.
“Your cattle post is near mine,” Paulina said. “Why didn’t you persuade my son to come home with you? What’s the good of him staying in the bush when there is no water and the cattle are dying?”
A queer, guarded look crept into Rankoane’s eyes. “So, your son has not come home, Paulina Sebeso?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t understand you, Rankoane,” she said, wildly. “What are you saying?”
The man shrugged. He had more than enough troubles to bear. His whole livelihood had almost vanished before his very eyes.
“I told your son to go home two weeks ago,” he said. “I expected him to be here, that’s why I did not stop at your cattle post today.”
He walked away to join the group of men, but then he turned round once and looked back at Paulina with a twisted expression of pain on his face. At the same time he was trying to escape responsibility by not telling the woman why he had ordered her son home two weeks previously. It must have been just about this time too, after he had brought the cattle back to the kraal for the night, that Paulina’s son had come to him.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Uncle,” the boy had said. “I am coughing up blood every day.”
But Rankoane knew at one glance what was wrong. Tuberculosis was the one major killer in the country, and the small boy with his red feverish eyes was seriously ill with it. Also, the diet they were eating now, plain porridge with salt and water and no milk, must have brought the boy’s ailment to a serious stage. Rankoane merely smiled because he did not want to alarm the boy who looked like a thin, bony scarecrow in his father’s oversized jacket.
“We are all coughing,” he said. “The reason why? There is too much dust and no rain to settle it. Dust in the lungs causes one to cough up blood. The one way to cure it is by drinking beer, but since you are young and cannot drink the beer you must go home tomorrow with the cattle and your mother will take you to hospital.”
The small boy grinned at him cheerfully, with big, white teeth. He was amused at Rankoane’s reference to beer and the man-to-man tone of his voice. Still, he was worried. He could not take the cattle back to the village and burden his mother with them.
“Can’t I leave the cattle in your care until I come back from the hospital, Uncle?” he asked.
Rankoane had shifted uncomfortably. He was now drawing up a half bucket of water from his well and he could not add to his own worries. Besides, Paulina Sebeso was a resourceful woman and she would know what to do. He explained this to the boy who nodded. The last thing he would get from his mother was a scolding. She made a joke of life and he already knew what she would say when he unexpectedly arrived home: “Goodness, Isaac, don’t tell me you have eaten up all your rations.” And he would say: “No, Mama, I have come home because I am coughing up blood every day.” This would most surely strike his mother as unusual, as she would not know of Rankoane’s story about the dust in the lungs. The thought of his mother and her surprise and concern filled the small boy’s heart with warm comfort. He stood up and walked back happily to his own roughly built hut, and it was the memory of this last conversation he had had with the boy that made Rankoane look back at Paulina Sebeso with a pained expression. He ought not to have done so, for his look froze Paulina to the ground and she could not move, so lifeless and numb was the feeling in her arms and legs. Several times Rankoane’s wife called to her, after the men had walked away. Eventually, she put the bucket down and walked over to Paulina.
“I say, my frien
d, what’s the matter?” asked Rankoane’s wife.
Paulina looked at Rankoane’s wife almost bitterly. Women who had husbands made the deep well of her own loneliness more acute to her.
“I’m thinking of going to the cattle post tomorrow to fetch my son,” she said.
“My, but you are brave, Paulina Sebeso,” the other woman said. “I hear that the bush is now full of dangerous beasts who are feasting off the dead cattle.”
Paulina Sebeso stared at Rankoane’s wife. People in comfort and safety said things like this to people who always faced the storms and winters of life.
“You’re a silly fool, Segametse,” she said and walked away with her head held up proudly. But halfway to her own home she almost dropped it to the ground in despair, and so hangdog and depressed was she that she nearly collided into Makhaya, who stood at the entrance of her yard, looking out towards the smeared, murky red glow which was the sunset.
“Oh Makhaya,” she said, looking up at him with a taut, strained face. “My whole life is turned upside down.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, smiling down at her. “The boy is young. It wouldn’t occur to him to come home with the cattle. We’ll go together to the cattle post tomorrow and bring him and the cattle back to the village.”
And that was all he said before walking away, back to the farm. There was nothing else he offered her except his kindness and help. On other days she questioned this relentlessly because he kept it unrelated to any human feeling. He seemed to ignore the fact that he awakened a fire in someone else’s life with his generosity. But on this day it lifted the weight off her arms and legs. He had not even asked her, as Rankoane had done, if her son had come home but had simply produced immediate solutions to her trouble. This filled her eyes with a quiet, wondering look. Yet Makhaya could have ended this odd game with a gesture or a few words or even a look. He knew how much Paulina Sebeso loved him, but still he hesitated. He would not have liked it if Paulina gave up and stopped loving him because it was like a warm sun on all the shadows of his life. It was just that there were things he could not put in words, that a woman’s life was a clutter of small everyday things – of babies, gossip, pots, food, fires, cups, and plates – and that all these things had crashed into his consciousness during the month he had worked on the dams and tobacco sheds with the women.