A Blade of Grass Read Online Free PDF Page A

some?”
    “No, it’s for you.” She watches him drink, the way his Adam’s apple moves as he swallows, a glint of perspiration on his neck where it disappears into his shirt. She wants to put her hand there, to feel the pulse of his energy. She looks at the men, then away.
    “I brought some biscuits too. Are you hungry?”
    “Famished.” Ben unwraps the waxed paper, then hesitates and looks over at the men, who are sitting on the ground regarding Märit with mild curiosity. “I’ll have the tea first,” he says, and puts the biscuits in a pocket.
    “Sorry, I didn’t think to bring enough for them too.”
    “Oh, they’ll be all right.”
    She knows he is embarrassed to eat the biscuits in front of the men. And she knows that he will share the biscuits with them when she leaves.
    “How is the work going here?” Märit asks.
    His face lights up. “Fine, fine. But there won’t be enough wire to enclose the whole field. I’ll have to go into Klipspring and get some more.”
    “Today?” Today, she hopes—now—so that she can ride with him into the town, so that she can speak to people, so that she can sit on the terraceof the Retief Hotel and drink something sweet and cool, with ice in the glass.
    “No, there’s no hurry. I’m waiting for that shipment of seedlings to come in on the train. Tomorrow.”
    “Oh.”
    Ben replaces the cap of the Thermos and screws the cover back on. He glances over at the men waiting patiently. Märit senses that he wants to get back to work. He is always eager to get back to work; his energy for the farm is boundless.
    “Well,” Märit says. “I’ll see you at supper.”
    “Yes, darling. I’ll see you then.” He smiles and touches her arm lightly. “What will you do now?”
    “I’m going to take a walk.” She gestures vaguely at the countryside around them.
    Ben kisses her again, on the cheek this time, and squeezes her hand.
    As if this is their signal to resume work, the men rise to their feet and nod to her as she passes. She walks on, away from the house. And when she looks back she sees Ben handing out the biscuits to his helpers. Märit envies the men, because they have their work, because they have their place on this farm, but most of all because they have his company.
    She waves, but Ben does not see her.
    T HE SILENCE RETURNS . Almost before Märit is out of the men’s sight, the sounds fade behind her—the sound of their voices, the sound of their tools, the sound of Ben’s voice—and then she hears only the birds and she is alone.
    This is wild country. The farms are miles apart, the towns even farther. She cannot place herself exactly, not geographically, not spiritually. This is not like the place where she grew up, where the gardens that lined the suburban streets were lush from the sprinklers that hissed their mist every morning and evening. Not like the city, where nature took the form of manicured parks behind wrought-iron fences, where the signs on the gates read “Whites Only.” Not like the stretch of coast where she went with her parents on a holiday, where sugarcane plantations grew right upto the railway line that separated the strip of beach and hotels from the rest of the country. Not like the farm where she went one summer when she was sixteen to stay with a school friend, in the wine country, just outside the city, where mimosa grew abundant and there was a swimming pool.
    This is a wild country with a history that Märit does not understand—a contested history, of which she has only a vague understanding. In the schools she attended, history begins with the arrival of a ship at the Cape, when a white man claims the country. Before that it is a history of other people, whose story is considered unimportant. They have no history. She knows that her education has been stilted, that her thinking is conventional, that her life is unremarkable. She knows all these things, but the knowledge does not make it any easier to stand here