Thokozani S.B. Maseko - Like a Lily on a Mountain, Love Grows on Rocky Terrains

A shuddering breath rocked Thandi’s chest, startling them all, and Mandla leaned down and lifted the edge of the blanket and covered Hannah’s lap with it.

“I thought she was gone,” Themba said in the quiet of the room.

Hannah nodded. “She just … she just …” and then she started to cry, big wracking sobs that shook her body and nearly knocked her off the bed.

Mandla steadied her, and she grabbed him, pressing her cheek against his thigh and letting him stroke her hair.

He smelled of horses and worse, but he was alive and real, and she clung to him shamelessly until she felt a light tug on her arm. She turned to find Thandi’s eyes open, her tongue wetting her dry lips.

“The baby’s crying,” she said, with great effort. Even though she was dying, her first thoughts were of her baby.

Just like a mother, Hannah thought, and she let the rest of the saying go as she heard the baby’s wail.

Mandla motioned to Themba, who left and came back with the baby, handing him to Hannah. He quieted immediately.

“He’s a beautiful baby,” Hannah said to Thandi, patting the baby’s head. “I think he favours his uncles with his light complexion.”

She shook her head very slightly. “Looks just like his pa. I’m glad to have been a part of this. His pa was a handsome son of a bitch.”

Hannah couldn’t help being a little shocked. She kept thinking that Thandi was some fairy princess, lying in state, with her thin hair flowing around her; and then reality would intrude.

“The man could charm the habit off a nun. ’Course I wasn’t a nun. Still aren’t right to kill a man over a roll or two in the hay, no sir, specially not a man who loved you.”

The baby wriggled in Hannah’s arms, reaching for his mama, who put out her hand and let the baby wrap his fist around one of her fingers.

“You’re as doomed as your mama,” she said to the boy. “God help you if you turnout like your mama’s kin. The devil will take you if you turn out like your pa.”

She struggled to sit up a little, just enough to reach the boy’s hand with her lips. She kissed the hand gently and fell back onto the pillow. “I think I’d like to sleep a little now,” she said, and closed her eyes.

Mandla took the baby, balanced him over his shoulder while he opened a drawer, and pulled out some clothing for Hannah. He handed her a small pile and motioned for her to leave the room.

On her way out she heard him whisper to Thandi.

“He got nothing worse than he deserved. Nobody does.”

Hannah hugged the clothes to her body, and she hurried to the room where they had her sleep in the night before.

***

Welcome had made his way down the side of the mountain; the surefooted horse he had purchased from an English man on a farm near the Big Bend cane plantations was accustomed to going down winding trails on the sides of mountains and river valleys. He had considered his options carefully, and he decided that he wouldn’t so much as spit until he knew which way the wind blew.

Maybe Thandi had already found herself someone else. She’d be one less problem to think about if she wasn’t looking to hog-tie him with the bands of marriage. The other woman wasn’t worth his worry, being too feeble to smell a fire if she was locked in a furnace. No, what he needed to know was how many men were there: three, or the fourth belonging to Thandi; where were they keeping the baby; and the lay of the land.

He had found himself a fine hiding spot, maybe a couple of hundred metres or so from their house, and had settled himself in for the day, savouring the feeling of being the hunter and not the prey. Maybe he’d get lucky and that fluffy-headed stick of a woman would come out and strut her stuff again. She sure did have a problem keeping her clothes on.

But it was Thabani, and not the woman, who came out of the house as he watched. The big man with the dark beard and the two gold teeth went straight for the shed and emerged with a shovel, a brown dog on his heels. When he returned to the porch, Mandla was just coming out. The dog’s tail began wagging at the site of him, but Mandla didn’t appear to be in the mood for playing. He was wearing his church clothes, and Welcome felt a twitch up his arm. It looked to him like maybe there was one less son of a bitch he’d have to worry about as Thabani nodded, took the shovel, and climbed up the ridge. At the summit he plunged the shovel into the earth over and over again until the purpose became unmistakable.

A ripple of disappointment went through Welcome. Themba hadn’t been down by the river the previous day, and now it looked as if they were getting ready to bury him. Welcome had his heart set on putting an end to Themba Dlamini with his own hands for a long time now. He had decided that even a bullet was too good for him and he had lain awake at night in the traditional doctor’s house in Ngudzeni, where he planned Themba Dlamini, deaths too horrible to confess aloud.

***

Thabani struggled to dig the grave in the hot sun. He mobbed his brow, took off his shirt, and continued to dig as if nothing else was going on in the world. He looked like a simple country farmer who might be burying his wife out there on the ridge, and not the scum of the world Welcome knew him to be.

The fluffy-headed woman came out of the house, dressed up in a dark printed wrapper that set his teeth on edge. He remembered the wrapper really well. He remembered how proud of it Thandi had been. He remembered her warning him to be careful with it as he unfastened the buttons that ran down the back. He remembered clutching the hem of it after he had fallen to the ground. He remembered her yanking it out of his grip and running, running, and then he couldn’t remember anything. Nothing about how he’d wound up in Ngudzeni from Big Bend, strangers tending to him … smoke and magic words … feathers and potions.

The woman was on the ridge, talking to Thabani. The baby cried inside the house, and the woman raised her head as if to hear better. She said a few more words to Thabani and then she went running to the house, tripping on the hem of the dress and nearly falling. Probably Themba’s woman, and too grief stricken to think about lifting her hem; or just too feeble; he didn’t know which.

Thabani returned to the house and he washed with water from a bucket on the portico. When he was done, he went into the house, and the fluffy-headed woman came out and sat on the portico with the baby in her arms. She held the baby tightly to her chest and kissed the top of his head over and over again. If only Welcome had bought those binoculars in Big Bend. He couldn’t make out a feature of the babybaby’s face. Couldn’t see if he had dimples like his grandma, big hands like his pa and his grandpa before him. Couldn’t see anything from so far away. Damn, and damn again! He’d certainly like to get a better look at the child.

***

“Open the door, Miss,” someone called from inside, and she rose and pushed the door inward into the house.

Mandla came out backwards, struggling with the makeshift coffin, nearly falling down the two steps that elevated the portico from the ground. Thabani held the middle as best as he could, from one side. Around his heels the hunting dog danced, nipped at his heels almost tripping him up, until Thabani delivered a swift kick to the dog’s soft underbelly. At the far end of the coffin, his face clearly visible to Welcome was Themba Dlamini.

Well, at least it wasn’t Themba making the trip to meet his maker. Welcome could still look forward to the pleasure of doing unto others as had been done to him. He waited for Thandi to emerge, one eye on the procession, the other on the door. She didn’t come. Has she run off again, this time abandoning the baby?