October

by Zoe Wicomb

  The girl looked panic-stricken for a moment. O Gits, I haven’t got any; this isn’t Mrs. Ball’s. I’ll get some tomorrow. Jake, you see, doesn’t like it much, but I do.

  Oh no, Mercia protested, I didn’t mean that. This chutney is fine, I mean, it’s lovely, but also, there’s no need to do without because Jake doesn’t like it. When will he have his dinner? He must be persuaded to eat. It can’t do him any good lying in that stuffy room. Driven by embarrassment, the words spilling from her lips could not be stopped.

  Lately, Sylvie explained, Jake has more or less been confined to bed. His legs, they’re bad, and his chest is kaput. He can’t breathe; he has no appetite, no energy. And he won’t let me clean or open the window even. I’m not used to living in a mess. Lowering her voice she added, He just drinks and drinks like there’s no tomorrow. Anything he can lay his hands on. He used to stagger out to the bar but in the last few days he’s not had the strength. He goes berserk if I don’t get home on time with his bottle.

  How strange then that Sylvie thought there was nothing wrong with him. Tomorrow, Mercia resolved, when Jake roused himself, they would talk, and she would get to the bottom of this.

  Mercia said she was sorry but such a huge plate of food was beyond her; she could eat only half of it, delicious as it was. Girls like Sylvie still had the capacity to digest, but when you reached Mercia’s age, you had to be careful.

  Girl! Sylvie shrieked, I’m thirty-eight.

  How Jake slept through all that screaming was a mystery to Mercia. The girl, or rather woman, had only one register, declamatory, as if the most mundane statement had dramatic potential in the telling. And the volume was deafening. How could anyone bear it? Mercia found her own volume dropping in the presence of such declaiming, so that the girl—she must think of her as woman—often had to say, Excuse me, I didn’t catch that. Why did Mercia do it? What would it cost to let go and shout along merrily? But that was as far as she went—the posing of questions.

  Sylvie carefully transferred the food from Mercia’s plate into a Tupperware container and placed it in the fridge. That will do for lunch tomorrow, she said. Mercia wondered if she should offer to help bathe the child, but it seemed he would go to bed just as he was, dusty legs and all. Should she not have read him a story? Is that not how children go to sleep? But the child called a hurried good night and crept into the dark room where his father snored, surely, Mercia thought, with an unpromising night ahead. Of course, she knew nothing of children, felt a certain fear of the boy, but the mouth and eyes were so like Jake as a child, so like her little brother with his snake belt bunching together the too-large khaki shorts into which he would have to grow, that she offered to share her room, said she didn’t mind Nicky sleeping with her, but his mother said no, that he wouldn’t like that.

  •••

  When Mercia staggers out in the morning, Sylvie brings in from the yard something in a checkered cloth that she drops hastily onto the kitchen table. Ouch, it’s hot, she cries. The smell of wood smoke wafts in with that of freshly baked bread.

  I thought you’d like roosterbrood for breakfast. It’s quick to cook on the coals, she explains. I kneaded last night. She leans over the latched lower door and shouts for the child, Nicky. God knows where he goes, she complains. So early in the morning and already he’s disappeared.

  Mercia slides a knife through the grilled bread and stuffs butter into the envelope. Butter on roosterbrood? Sylvie says boldly. Her voice contains a hint of scorn. It appears that only namby-pambies, or is it the gluttonous, would butter such bread.

  Ag ja, Mercia says. She relies heavily on Ag ja. There is little else to say but then, as she bites into the warm bread, she exclaims with delight, It’s sourdough, isn’t it. She had forgotten about the sourdough of her childhood, had believed it to be the invention of metropolitan master chefs. Yes, Sylvie says, if you like you could take back some of my culture in a Tupperware, just add flour and warm water and leave in a warm place. Her voice gathers volume as the emphatic Namaqua speech takes courage from her sister-in-law’s ignorance.

  I’ve never made sourdough, Mercia confesses. She knows that this would please the girl. I’ve no idea how to make it, but you can buy a sourdough loaf, expensive it is too, at my local organic bakery in Scotland.

  Which surprises Sylvie. She wouldn’t have thought that country bread would be available overseas. It sets her off into explaining how some people use raisins, but that the ordinary potato makes for a much better rising, fermented with less sweetness, although a teaspoon of sugar certainly hurries things along nicely. Look, she says, there’s nothing to it. You boil the water, leave it to cool, but make sure it’s still hand-hot, then put in thick slices of raw potato. I don’t even bother to peel the potato. In three or four days or perhaps five, there should be a gray fermented mess, and only then do you add flour and wait for—

  Mercia interrupts. Oh no, what a palaver, that’s way too much trouble. The bread from my local bakery is very good. Even in the olden days my mother only made sourdough when she ran out of fresh yeast. Then we were so far away from shops. No need to go to all that trouble nowadays.

  Sylvie looks at her askance. What a strange thing to say after she stayed up the previous night to knead, and rose early to make a fire so that there’d be something warm for breakfast. Well, so much for the blarry woman’s grandness, for all that education. If she does not think that warm roosterbrood is a treat, why does she not at least pretend that it is? That’s what she, Sylvie, would have done. That’s how AntieMa had raised her. What on earth would she have to make for breakfast tomorrow if roosterbrood is not good enough?

  Sylvie leans over the door and shouts again for the boy. Ni-icky, she bellows. Blarry child, she’ll kill him for running off like a wild thing. And she notes with something akin to pleasure that Mercia winces at her words, that she stops short of pulling a face.

  I’ll go and see Jake, Mercia says, and pays no heed to Sylvie’s anxious attempts to stop her. In the fetid room, she calls his name, but Jake refuses to reply, pulls the cover over his head. When she shakes him by the shoulder he calls out: Leave me alone. My head, I can’t speak. I’ll get up later, when I feel better.

  Defeated, she leaves the room.

  Jake’s house, at the fringe of the township, is one of a short strip of buildings that peters out into a field. Sylvie says there is talk of further building on the field, which is a shame because she relies on the council renting it out for grazing. Four of the sheep nibbling at the stunted shrubs belong to her. Look, she says, that two-year-old dorper, the Bleskop with the marking on the rear is hers, given to her by Meester—Pa, she corrects herself. And now she has the additional sheep, one of which has just given birth.

  In spite of the apparent lack of new spring growth, the lambs are gamboling in that desolate veld, and Sylvie points excitedly at two leaping joyfully over ghanna bush. See, there, right there, she says, those are hers, the ones who now fix their mouths on either side of the dam’s udder, tugging fiercely at her teats whilst their stunted tails wag furiously with pleasure. The dam, poor thing, flicks her ears and stamps with impatience, tries more than once to move away but the lambs, firmly clamped to her udder, draw their feet nimbly, if comically, along and move with her. Only when they relax their greedy grip on the teats does the dam manage a hasty getaway, but with her lumbering bulk the lambs quickly overtake her and clamp their jaws once more to the tired udder.

  No escape there, Mercia says with disgust. And they’re so big—should they not by now leave the poor mother alone and graze by themselves?

  Sylvie shakes her head. This is her territory, and she delights in the fancy woman’s ignorance. No, man, they’re only a couple of weeks old. And they do graze, she explains, but the lambs still need milk as well, mixed feeding, just like any baby. See how they wag their tails, well babies do much the same—they murmur at the breast, make funny noises when they first start on solids too.

  Her though
ts flicker guiltily to Mercia. They really ought to have slaughtered a sheep for her visit. That was what one did in the past when people came from the city, from afar to stay; it was what AntieMa always did at New Year when Ousie came from town. Then it was all go, a whole day of hard work with nothing wasted: the intestines cleaned in order to be stuffed as sausages; the colon, clogged with fat, dried for a crackling fry; tripe and trotters scraped clean with a razor blade; and the salted meat hung out in the evening breeze to dry. Only when the sun rose would it be brought indoors, packed in a basin and left in a cool dark room, covered against the noisy mumbling of blowflies, who would lay eggs and spoil a whole carcass within a day. Then there were the delectable organs that could not be wind dried, liver, heart, kidneys, spleen, sweetbreads, and best of all the special treat of braised brains. Which meant nothing short of feasting, and passing on parts to neighbors, although AntieMa argued against giving anything to Oom Hansie, who sat under the tree; he shouldn’t be encouraged, she said haughtily. But Ousie always managed to wrap up some liver in greaseproof paper for the child to slip to him.

  Sylvie assures herself that things are different these days. She could not be expected to lose a whole sheep, what with Jake not eating at all, and the faint guilt dissipates as she thinks of the woman looking down her nose at roosterbrood.

  They are standing in silence on the verandahless stoep, where Mercia, not knowing what to do with herself, not knowing how to get away, has turned to a neglected geranium, stooping to pinch off dead leaves.

  Ai tog, Sylvie sighs, waving her arm vaguely at the field, it’s not much of a life, nê.

  Mercia straightens to look at the girl, whose head is tilted to the sun. It is as if she sees her for the first time, as if, brushing aside the prattle, there is a new face strangely luminous, every fiber lit with sadness.

  Is the girl finally going to speak of Jake’s drinking, of his inability to get out of bed? But no, when she turns, once more composed, it is the sheep she speaks of.

  Once upon a time, she says, they would have been wild, doing their own sheep thing, and then people came along to domesticate them. Seduced them with ready-made food in winter, and that was the end of them. Fed and fattened so that they have lambs, and then the slaughter.

  It transpires that there is no stopping Sylvie when it comes to sheep. Or goats, for that matter. She tells of being just a little girl when she was given her first kid. Funny, it was Oom Hansie, did Mercia remember the old man who used to sit hammering and sawing under the old thorn tree? Dead now from the drink, and a broken heart people used to say, but anyway, he had a nanny goat for milk and it was he who gave Sylvie the day-old lamb, still unsteady on its feet. The dam had died shortly after giving birth and the little thing had to be fed by bottle. How she loved its wagging tail as she held it close. It would suck at her fingers when the bottle was drained and follow her around. Mary, she was, with her little Bokkie, like the English rhyme they recited at school, and sometimes she couldn’t help wishing that he were a lamb with fleece as white as snow. Anyway, he had beautiful brown patches on his neck and on the left, no, she frowns thinking again, it was on the right, all the way down to his foot. Even Bokkie’s droppings were perfectly formed little pellets that smelled of earth and wild thyme—sometimes, musically clattering onto AntieMa’s linoleum—which she hurriedly had to clear away. But then, Bokkie’s time came and there was no arguing with the old girls. Could she not herself be slaughtered instead? she asked AntieMa. She prayed to God, but unlike Father Abraham who was offered a ram caught with its horns in the thicket in order to spare Isaac, God would not provide a substitute for Bokkie.

  Sylvie giggles. She supposes God could not very well give her a boychild, and one with horns to boot, to slaughter instead. You do know the Bible story of Father Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, don’t you? she asks, and Mercia nods curtly.

  Sylvie does not speak of her fears for Bleskop, who sooner or later will have to be slaughtered. It was not as if she herself did not eat mutton, but not yet, she prayed, not even for the grand sister from overseas could she bring herself to do it. She had, of course, to ask Jake if she should slaughter for Mercia’s visit, but Jake, rude as ever, snarled, Just keep your hands off my sister, she’s got nothing to do with you. Do what you like with your fucking sheep. Uncouth, that is what he has become, so she gave herself permission to save the sheep. Instead, she would rise early to make a fire and cook the roosterbrood, which, it turns out, does not please Madam. Unless, and she glances sidelong at Mercia, she really is clever enough to see through the substitution.

  It’s so much trouble, she explains, forgetting that she is echoing Mercia on sourdough. The business of slaughtering, I mean, when you could just buy from the butcher. I hope you don’t mind, she adds timidly. Lodewyk’s mutton is good, comes from the same local Namaqua sheep.

  Mercia has no idea what she is talking about. No, of course not, she says. Whatever the problem is, she does not want any further trouble for the girl, whose sadness is barely hidden in all this prattle about sheep. Mercia says that she is there to help, to see what could be done to relieve the burden. How will they sort out Jake’s problem? she asks.

  Sylvie, it seems, is not ready to speak of Jake. She laughs. Look, she says, pointing to the field. The dam must have made herself scarce, for the stupid lambs bleat loudly, disconsolately, until the mother popping up from a donga can take no more and baa-baas in return. All right then, come along, she baa-baas, and then the whole aggressive business of feeding starts all over again, the tugging at the teats.

  I could watch them all day, Sylvie says, I know their bleats as well as their mother does. That pair, and she points, had some trouble being born. Had to pull the second one out myself, she says with pride. It will be very hard to slaughter those.

  You don’t do it yourself, the slaughtering, do you? Mercia asks with a shudder.

  Yes, of course, I wouldn’t let anyone else kill my lambs. Learned when I was young. Didn’t you, from your father? Meester, Pa, used to slaughter, and when I was a child I used to help, holding a leg for the chopping off of the head.

  Mercia finds this talk horrible, but suspecting that Sylvie thinks her a namby-pamby, she looks the girl resolutely in the eye as Sylvie speaks of kneading away with your fist the skin from the carcass.

  Not at all difficult, and a nice, hissing sound, Sylvie says. Then, of course, I was sent to work in Lodewyk’s butchery. If you want to eat it you should be able to do it yourself, that’s what I always say.

  It is this, Mercia thinks, the sanctimonious nonsense that makes her vacillate wildly for and against Sylvie. For all her belief in female solidarity, she simply cannot take to this girl. As for the snobbery that Jake attributes to her, well, at least it is not the whole story. She is relieved when Nicky turns up, gamboling too, like a lamb. Hurry, Sylvie calls out to him. We have to drive the sheep over the hill, into the next camp. This patch has been eaten and trampled bare.

  The little boy frowns. A man, he says, could just run into the midst of them and shout and frighten the daylights out of them. Then we’ll see them jump over the fence. A man could get a big stick.

  A man? Mercia repeats with distaste.

  Oh yes, his mother smiles, already he thinks he’s a little man.

  I wouldn’t encourage that, Mercia retorts, and turning to the boy says that being mannish and frightening animals with sticks is not humane, is not what good people do. She’d rather he be a decent little boy.

  His mother says nothing, smiles, and pats the boy’s head as if to say that he should not mind his auntie, that the woman for all her supposed cleverness knows nothing of either children or sheep.

  Mercia spends most of the day in her room reading and writing. Although there are several articles she ought to look at, she wishes she had brought along the novel, Home, to read again. The strange room is unsettling; she cannot start a new chapter; instead, she revises again an earlier one. If Jake is not ready to see her
, she has no intention of wasting her time, although her patience is wearing thin. To stretch, she steps out and finds the girl flustered, waiting to speak to her. Why did she not knock? But Sylvie ignores the question. She says that she will have to leave for work in the next ten minutes. Jake is still asleep so she can’t leave Nicky. She’ll take him to her AntieMa, perhaps Mercia remembers her old aunt? Mercia nods. Sylvie has run out of time, so Mercia must please find herself something to eat for lunch in the fridge, and perhaps get something for Jake as well. He eats so little, perhaps he could be persuaded by her.

  It is preposterous. Mercia takes in the neatly pressed hair, the memory of a bruise yellowing below her left eye. Nonsense, she says, I’ll wake Jake; of course he should look after the boy.

  Oh no, the girl begs, please, and her voice is strained. He’ll be in a black mood if he doesn’t sleep it all off; please I couldn’t leave the child when he’s like that.

  So Mercia relents. Fine, she says, but you’re making it difficult for yourself. Look, I’m here; I’ll stay with Nicky. No really, she says as Sylvie looks doubtfully toward the room where Mercia has been working. I can do that any other time. No problem in taking the afternoon off, and you can rely on me to give Jake a talking-to when he deigns to get up.

  Mercia has a vague memory of Sylvie’s auntie, by now surely an old woman who could not run after a child wagging his tail. Besides, that is no way to raise a child—the scolding and shouting of country folk.

  Sylvie was raised by her parents, Ma and Pappa, and the sisters, AntieMa, Nana and Ousie, who all lived in a ramshackle little house at the edge of the location. Pappa had been injured in the gypsum mine, so he limped about the homestead, growling and sucking at his pipe while he tended goats and grew pumpkins. Ma shuffled through the dark rooms, her head swaddled in two large doeke tied the old-fashioned way in an invisible knot above her left ear so that her long, withered neck seemed unable to carry the weight.