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Certain Winds from the
South 1
M'ma Asana eyed the wretched pile of cola-nuts, spat, and
picked up the reed-bowl. Then she put down the bowl, picked
up one of the nuts, bit at it, threw it back, spat again, and stood
up. First, a sharp little ache, just a sharp little one, shot up from
somewhere under her left ear. Then her eyes became misty.
'I must check on those logs,' she thought, thinking this
misting of her eyes was due to the chill in the air. She stooped
over the nuts.
'You never know what evil eyes are prowling this dust over
these grasslands, I must pick them up quickly.'
On the way back to the kraal her eyes fell on the especially
patchy circles that marked where the old pits had been. At this
time, in the old days, they would have been nearly bursting
and as one scratched out the remains of the out-going season,
one felt a near-sexual thrill of pleasure looking at these pits,
just as one imagines a man might feel who looks upon his wife
in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Pregnancy and birth and death and pain; and death again when there are no more pregnancies, there are no more
births, and therefore, no more deaths. But there is only one
death and only one pain.
Show me a fresh corpse, my sister, so I can weep you old
tears.
The pit of her belly went cold, then her womb moved and
she had to lean by the doorway. In twenty years Fuseni's has
been the only pregnancy and the only birth. Twenty years,
and the first child and a male! In the old days, there would
have been bucks and you got scolded for serving a woman in
maternity a duicker. But these days those mean poachers on
the government reserves sneak away their miserable duickers,
such wretched hinds! Yes they sneak away even the duickers to the houses of those sweet-toothed southerners.
In the old days, how time goes, and how quickly age comes.
But then does one expect to grow younger when one starts
getting grandchildren? Allah be praised for a grandson.
The fire was still strong when she returned to the room. M'ma Asana put the nuts down. She craned her neck into the
corner. At least those logs should take them to the following
week. For the rest of the evening, she sat about preparing for
the morrow's marketing.
The evening prayers were done. The money was in the bag.
The grassland was still, Hawa was sleeping and so was Fuseni.
M'ma came out to the main gate, first to check up if all was well
outside and then to draw the door across. It was not the figure,
but rather the soft rustle of light footsteps trying to move still
more lightly over the grass, that caught her attention.
'If only it could be my husband.'
But of course it was not her husband!
'Who comes?'
'It is me, M'ma.'
'You, Issa, my son?'
'Yes, M'ma.'
'They are asleep.'
'I thought so. That is why I am coming now.'
There was a long pause in the conversation as they both
hesitated about whether the son-in-law should go in to see Hawa and the baby or not. Nothing was said about this
struggle but then one does not say everything.
M'ma Asana did not see but felt him win the battle. She
crossed the threshold outside and drew the door behind her.
Issa led the way. They did not walk far, however. They just
turned into a corner between two of the projecting pillars in
the wall of the kraal. It was as it should have been for it was he
who needed the comforting coolness of it for his backbone.
'M'ma, is Fuseni well?'
'Yes.'
'M'ma; is Hawa well?'
'Yes.'
'M'ma please tell me, is Fuseni very well?'
'A-ah, my son. For what are you troubling yourself so
much? Fuseni is a new baby who was born not more than ten
To be continued |
