Norman Rush - Mating

Mma Molebi was speaking too softly for the group, and people signaled this to her by holding up their index fingers until she spoke up. She was either concluding or she was losing her way. Tsau was a jewel, she said twice. And then she went into something that moved me, albeit it was rather disjunct from what had gone before. She said Some women in this place have even once been beggars, but never shall they be again, because any woman who chooses to go away from Tsau can have money to take and shall know catering as well as many other kinds of work, and she shall never be seen working as maids or cleaners to others. The degree to which I’m easily moved in the early morning must have something to do with my biochemistry. I remember bursting into tears the first time I heard The Cherry Tree Carol sung on a record by Joan Baez, also at that time of day. And I have had other attacks of piercing feeling in the slot between seven and eight in the morning, including one over Mother and Child Reunion, an incident that let me in for some substantial teasing. People noticed that Mma Molebi seemed to have moved me, and were approving, I thought. The basket circulated again.

The winner this time seemed to have nothing to say other than that I was to be praised for never forcing any sister to speak to me in English.

Dineo signaled that it was my turn to speak, which I did, saying who I was and in essence repeating my pitch about being fascinated with Tsau and wanting to stay as long as that could be permitted, but volunteering this time to work however much I was asked to in order to help with any costs my presence caused. I laid in some filigree, but sincere filigree, so to speak, about wanting to witness the extraordinary things women seemed to be accomplishing in Tsau.

I could tell something was up with Dorcas. She said, out of turn and under her breath, something to the effect that she hoped I would find enough birds in Tsau to please me, and that if I was unable to find enough birds to please me I should come to the mother committee, who would find birds for me.

Dineo cut her off and proceeded directly to what I took for the vote. She looked at each member of the committee until she got some response imperceptible to me. But apparently the vote was in my favor, because she went into a welcoming speech. A great exception was being made for me, she said, and I would be welcome among them only so long as I was seen as a friend of the struggle of poor women to gather strength and wealth. She put this with emphasis. I could stay where I was now, in the empty rondavel next to Mma Isang, who would continue to see after me and organize my meals, for which I would be asked to work at any tasks I would choose for a sum of fifteen hours each week. They hoped I would be willing to think of helping with teaching English to some of the older children. There was a great need. Finally, they thought it would be good for me to stay awhile because it was always a pleasure to meet persons from one’s own country when one was in a far place, so they thought Rra Puleng would be glad to see me there in Tsau. If ever I wished to leave, it would be three weeks until it could be arranged with the Barclays plane. On no account would they assist me to go off into the desert again, even if I wished to. And as a last thing, was I pleased at how my donkey was being looked after?

I thanked them, then it was over. Mma Isang appeared from the wings and came to embrace me, which inspired a couple of rather more halfhearted embraces from two of the women, not including Dorcas.

I was elated.

Dorcas walked by me, saying musingly to herself the names of the local bird species she could think of, making a production out of not seeming to be able to think of more than six.

At Tea

A sort of municipal high tea was put out every afternoon around four on the Sekopololo veranda. There would be tea, powdered milk, fruit cut up into small pieces, sometimes bread pudding. Denoon would make cameo appearances at tea, often, but he hadn’t been staying put long enough for me to get into casual conversation with him. I was tired of this and didn’t understand it, really. My life is taking forever, I remember thinking.

I loved teatime. There was a moral point to it. Some days there would be a generous collation put out, some days it would be sparse. It all depended on what happened to be either left over or in good supply. If there was only a little fresh fruit, it would be cut up minutely and thorn tree spines would be stuck into each chunk, as in hors d’oeuvres. Tea was never intended to be a spread adequate for the whole population, should it choose to turn up. The point seemed to be for people to adjust to what was available each day, holding back from taking any large, personally satisfying amount in favor of everybody getting a little of whatever there was. One custom was for no adult to take any fruit until the children who were around in the first few minutes had taken what they wanted. An undeclared object of the exercise seemed to be for teatime to finish each day with something remaining uneaten on the table, no matter how much or how little had been provided. Everyone seemed to know what this exercise was about and to enjoy being part of it, even the children. You could see them assimilating the rules, deferring to each other occasionally, turning down morsels themselves. I never tired of it.

I managed to be in the right place when Denoon arrived that afternoon. I went up to him and we shook hands. His palms were like planks. We knew everyone was watching.

He had a talent, which was to be able to talk intelligibly while ostensibly merely smiling. It was remarkable.

They want you to stay, he said. Even a faction I felt sure would be against it wants you to stay. It’s very funny. They think you’re a spy sent here to get the goods on Tsau, and that suits them fine. Most people just seem to like you. But anyway keep doing what you’re doing.

I said Yes, everyone was very nice at the mother committee. I’m definitely going to be here awhile.

Congratulations, he said. And then he said There was never any doubt.

Votaries of the Maggot

I forgave him that evening during corso, which was the correct term for the postprandial walking around and going into houses where the welcome light was on that he had inculcated in Tsau. He had gotten the idea for it out of Tolstoy’s Sebastopol Sketches, he told me. It was apparently something done in Russian provincial towns during the nineteenth century, and it had seemed like a good idea, so why not?

In addition to the usual shooting the breeze, another thing that went on during corso was a scene that was a good deal like testifying, as it’s called in fundamentalist Protestant churches. One woman might tell her tribulations up to the time of coming to Tsau and the listeners would chorically moan along, often making the speaker repeat the most painful episodes a few times. Many of the stories were genuinely harrowing, but there was something formulaic about the way they got told.

That evening I was in a house on Slessor where a woman lived whose name was Mariam Nene. She was under forty and seemed young for the chronology implicit in her story. She was the daughter of an accused witch. She had been fourteen when her mother died — poisoned, Mariam was sure — and it was widely assumed that Mariam had been initiated into witchcraft as a matter of course by her mother. So she was persona non grata, very, in her village near Pandamatenga close to the border with then Rhodesia.

She had an uncle on the Rhodesian side of the border in a village near Plumtree, and she set off on foot to find him. At this point Denoon slipped in and sat down. Members of the same tribe lived on both sides of the border, which meant nothing to them and which has still never been completely demarcated. I only remember the centerpiece of her story, which was her arrival in her uncle’s village just in time to witness him being murdered. He was a herbalist but was also clearly believed to be a sorcerer. He had gone to a pond in the bush to dive for calcified lark dung, a powerful ingredient in magical concoctions, and enemies of his had been lying in wait. Mariam arrived at the pond and saw from the bushes, where she stayed hidden, her uncle being prodded with long poles to the center of the pond and then forcibly kept under until he drowned. This was a favored way of killing sorcerers because it left no marks. White administrators would never bother about deaths that looked natural. Denoon seemed to be strongly affected by her story. Mariam started to tell this horrific part of it again, and Nelson got up and stepped outside. I followed.