A seed does not sleep in the soil for ever.
If it should, then a whole people is doomed
like the sun that refuses to rise.
A woman, old and frail, walks through the heavy door of the hospital, barefoot, unsure, her eyes roaming the place from the shiny floor to the roof. She walks to the man sitting behind a desk, pen in hand. He chews the other end of his pen, or sucks it since most of his teeth are missing. He looks surprised, his eyes seeming to accuse the other of intruding. It is as if a corpse has walked right there in front of him, in daylight.
'I have come to take the body of the woman whose home is not known by anybody,' she says, hesitant all the time. Her dry lips quiver before they steady down with imposed confidence.
'What?'
'The body of the woman who is not known by anybody,' she repeats in a soft plea. Her other hand gesturing to the man to remind him that she is not in a hurry, but would like to see the way of things quickly.
'I do not understand. Do you know her then?' he says, dropping the pen on the desk.
'I do not know her, but someone ought to know her. How can she not be known by someone in a big city like this one?'
'Anyway, who told you she was here? I mean, how did you know she was here in the mortuary?'
'They say the radio said it. Then I saw it in the newspaper, a big picture too,' the frail woman says with more confidence.
'Then you know her or someone who might know her,' the man tries to reason.
'No, I don't know her much, but I know where she might come from.'
'How did you know that? The woman had no papers or anything to identify her,' the man says in resignation.
'Her name is Marita, the one who had come to look for her son returning from the war. She is the one.'
'How do you know her? Come from the same place or something?;
'Boarded the same bus to the city when she came here. We talked a lot on the bus and she told me everything.'
'But you cannot take the body on those grounds. We need a relative with proof, something to show,' the man begins to feel hot inside himself.
'If nobody claims the body with proof, what will happen to the body?' she asks with a calm gesture of the arms and the head.
'The government will take the body and bury it,' the man says.
'Then can I talk with the government to give me the body so that I can bury it myself?' the woman insists.
'Government does not do it that way,' the man nibbles at the fingers of his left palm.
'Where does government stay so that I can visit him and ask for the body? I want the body, nothing else. I just want to take the body and bury it properly.' She winces as if in much pain.
'Mother, I think this has gone too far now. Can't you see I am losing my patience with your stupid request? How on earth do you expect to bury someone you have just met on a bus? Do you think burying someone is just like burying a cow or a donkey? Be reasonable!' He spits in between words, showers of anger burst through his teeth.
'If you want to scold me, I will not scold you back,' she mumbles softly.
'Look, I will not accept a mere witch like you coming here to such a big hospital just to cause trouble. Go and show your madness somewhere else or I will call the police.'
'You can speak like that if you have no mother, if you did not come from the womb of a mother like me. You can pour hot words out of your mouth, but you have a body in here which nobody wants to go and bury. I want to go and bury it because I have seen the woman when she was alive.' She walks nearer the man, prayerfully.
'I am sorry, mother, but tell me what makes you think you can bury someone whom you met on the bus? Tell me.' The man sits back and listens like a teacher attending to a child's plea.
_____
Marita is not someone I met on the bus. She is much more than that. Imagine, just think of it, a woman who gives me so much of what is inside her heart without crying. In our journey she took me to the well, back into the kitchen, then to the forest to gather firewood. It does not happen every day that someone you meet shows you the pain inside her heart, the troubles inside her mind. The mind is a hidden thing. The heart also is a hidden thing. Do they not say the mouth is a small cave with which to hide the things of inside. Many burdensome things which weigh inside the breast of a person. Marita showed me all the burdens I have inside me, but she did so without shedding even a little tear or making me feel sorry for her.
From the time Marita sat beside me on the seat of the bus, I felt her warmth seep into me, tickling my heart with a certain joy inside. She just said, 'How high will the sun be by the time we get to the big city? I am anxious.' She stared at the country whirling away outside the bus, trees in their green and rocks wearing the different patterns of their birth, the grass green with little patches of bare ground as if the children have been playing there. But there were no children. These were large farmlands which nobody farms. The owners are frenzied or vicious when they see someone walking through these unspoiled forests that are their farms. 'But there is no bus or car to take the walker away from the roads through the farms. So, one does not know how to leave the farmlands and reach the bus-stop. It is far away from the farm where I work,' she says with much ease, no bitterness.
But when we pass through the sugar farmlands, she keeps quiet as if she has nothing to say.
But then she says her own brother once worked there in the cane fields. He did not return. They say he died of an unknown disease, so they could not allow us to take the body for burial at home in the way our ancestors taught us. The houses of the sugar plantations are not good for people who work so hard. You should see the cane-cutters rising early in the morning before anything is awake, and then see them return in the afternoon. They are like trees burnt black, with legs and eyes. You know they burn the cane before they cut it, to scare away big snakes, they say. But it turns the bodies of the cane-cutters black like charcoal. If you see your mother's son in that blackness, you cry. You cry just like that. Tears just come into your eyes, and your heart bleeds. Then you know that the only thing they will do to forget their pain is to drink much beer and end up singing empty songs about how things will be better tomorrow.
Do you think there will be a tomorrow for someone who is already dead today? Do you think that black ash is good for anybody's lungs? I do not think so. That is why my brother died a bad death. They say he was clever with the cane machete when he was still strong. He worked with a white man called baas Macdhogo, but they say the white man's temper was not good because he was getting old before he made much money, so he fought a lot with my brother until one day it happened. Then they came to us saying that he had died of something bad which can kill us all if we bury him - because we do not know how to prevent the sickness from spreading to the lungs of those near him. He will be buried by those who know how to stop the bad illness from spreading. We shut our mouths and said one day the sun will rise for all to see.
My friend, Marita says, I have these things in my heart, but the thing that swells inside like a boil is the desire to see my son alive again. He was only a boy when he left to go and fight for his people. Think of it, a young boy leaving to go and fight for his people just like that. Do you not know that there are many old people who did not even dream of fighting for their people when they were young? Old people whose knees weaken when the white people say come here or run there. But many young people of these days are not like that. I do not know what has become of the milk from the breasts of today's mothers. It must be very angry because it is only the young who are running away so that they can come back. Running away to come back like the sun. It runs away in darkness so that it can return with more light. My father said it runs away when the light inside finishes early: it runs away to the woman who has the flame stick which can be used to light it again. This is what the young people are doing.
But my sister, have your heard the stories people were spreading about the children when they came back? Some said their shoes pointed the other way when they are going one way. Some said their bodies were so strong the bullets of the soldiers did not go through their skins. All sorts of things like the one about how the fighters disappeared when the soldiers came. They said all the women became heavy with children, so when the soldiers came, they would not beat up pregnant women. After they left, all the women just passed some air and there the fighters were. Can you believe that? When you hear such things you begin to know that the heads of people are full of many things.
