Edges (ssc), page 11
This would doubtless have occurred but for a circumstance of a kind peculiar, I think, to towns exactly the size of ours, and incomprehensible not only to the residents of cities, but to truly rural people as well. There lived, directly across the brick-paved street from us, a bitter old woman, a widow who, for some reason never explained to me, detested Mrs. Delage. It was lawful for my mother to be friendly with Suzanne’s, but if (women in small towns somehow know these things) she had gone so far as to invite Mrs. Delage to our house this widow would at once have become her enemy for life. The invitation was never given, and I believe my mother’s friend died while I was at college.
Thus while I was still small I was hardly aware of Suzanne Delage, though my mother often mentioned hers; in high school, as I indicated, though I was in much closer proximity to the girl herself, this was hardly altered. I heard of her vaguely, in connection perhaps with some friend of a friend. I must surely have seen her in the corridors hundreds of times—if one can be said to see, in a crowd, people one does not know. I must sometimes have shared classrooms with her, and certainly we were together at assembly and in the vast study hall. She would have attended many of the same dances I did, and it is even possible that I danced with her—but I do not really believe that, and if, indeed, it happened, the years have so effectively sponged the event from my mind that no slightest trace remains.
And in fact I think I would never have recalled the name of Suzanne Delage at all, as I lay in bed last night listening to the creaking of this empty house in the autumn wind and searching the recesses of my memory for some extraordinary incident with which to attest the author’s thesis, if it had not been for something that took place a few days ago.
I had been shopping, and happened to meet, on the sidewalk in front of one of the larger stores, a woman of my own age whom I have known all my life and who is now the wife of a friend. We stood chatting for a moment —she, after the usual half teasing reproaches about my (supposed) gay bachelor life, gossiping about her husband and children. As she turned to leave a girl of fifteen or so came out of the store and, smiling but intent upon her own concerns, walked quickly past us and down the street. Her hair was of a lustrous black, and her complexion as pure as milk; but it was not these that for a moment enchanted me, nor the virginal breasts half afraid to press the soft angora of her sweater, nor the little waist I might have circled with my two hands. Rather it was an air, at once insouciant and shy, of vivacity coupled with an innocence and intelligence that were hers alone. To the woman beside me I said: “What a charming child. Who is she?”
“Her name?” My friend’s wife frowned and snapped her fingers. “I can’t think of it. But of course you know whose she is, don’t you? She’s the very image of her mother at that age—Suzanne Delage.”
Naomi Mitchison, a native of Edinburgh, has a lifetime of deeds and accomplishments that beggars description. Among other distinctions, she was a Labour candidate in England, and was tribal advisor to the Bakgatla of southeast Botswana (and is in Africa as this note is being written). She has had published approximately fifty books, including several about Africa, and a novel called Memoirs of a Spacewoman—feminist science fiction, two decades ahead of its time, and never yet properly appreciated though often reprinted.
Here, however, she deals with…magic.
The Finger
BY NAOMI MITCHISON
Kobedi had a mother but no father. When he was old enough to understand such things someone said that his father was the Good Man. By that they meant the Bad Man, because, so often, words, once they are fully known, have meanings other or opposite to their first appearance. Kobedi, however, hoped that his father was the fat man at the store. Sometimes his mother went there and brought back many things, not only the needful meal and oil, but tea and sugar and beautiful tins with pictures, and almost always sweets for himself. Once, when he was a quite little boy, he had asked his mother where she kept the money for this and she answered “Between my legs.” So, when she had drunk too much beer and was asleep on her back and snoring, he lifted her dress to see if he could find this money and take a little. But there was nothing there except a smell which he did not like. He had two small sisters, both fat and flat-nosed like the man at the store. But his own nose was thin, and the Good Man also had a thin nose as though he could cut with it.
Kobedi went to school and he thought he now understood what his mother had meant though he did not wish to think of it; at least she paid the school fees, though she grumbled about them. He was in Standard Three and there were pictures on the wall which he liked; now he wrote sentences in his jotter and they were ticked in red because they were correct. That was good. But in a while he became aware that things were happening around him which were not good. First it was the way his mother looked at him, and sometimes felt his arms and legs, and some of her friends who came and whispered. Then came the time he woke in the blackest of the night, for there was a smell which made him feel sick and the Good Man was there, sitting on the stuffed and partly torn sofa under the framed picture of white Baby Jesus. He was wearing skins of animals over his trousers, and his toes, which had large nails, clutched and burrowed in the rag rug Kobedi’s mother had made. The Good Man saw that Kobedi was awake because his eyes were open and-staring; he pointed one finger at him. That was the more frightening because his other hand was under the skirt of a young girl who was sitting next to him, snuggling. The pointing finger twitched and beckoned and slowly Kobedi unrolled himself from his blanket and came over naked and shaking.
The Good Man now withdrew his other hand and his dampish fingers crawled over Kobedi. He took out two sinews from a bundle, rubbing them in the sweat of his own skin until they became thin and hard and twisted and dipped them into a reddish medicine powder he had and spat on them and he pointed the finger again and Kobedi slunk back and pulled the blanket over his head.
The next day the tied-on sinews began to make his skin itch. He tried to pull them off but his mother slapped him, saying they were strong medicine and he -must keep them on. He could not do any arithmetic that day. The numbers had lost their meaning and his teacher beat him.
The next time he became aware of that smell in the night he carefully did not move nor open his eyes, but pulled the blanket slowly from his ears so that he could hear the whispering. Again it was the Good Man and his mother and perhaps another woman or even two women. They were speaking of a place and a time, and at that place and time, a happening. The words were so dressed as to mean something else, as when speaking of a knife they called it a little twig, when they spoke of the heart it was the cooking pot, when they spoke of the liver it was the red blanket, and when they spoke of the fat it was the beer froth. And it became clear to Kobedi that when they spoke of the meal sack it was of himself they were speaking.’ Death, death, the whispers said, and the itching under the sinews grew worse.
The next morning all was as always. The little sisters toddled and played and their mother pounded meal for the porridge and called morning greetings to her neighbors across the walls of the lapa. Then she said to him: “After the school is finished you are to go to the store and get me one packet tea. Perhaps he will give you sweets. Here is money for tea.”
It was not much money, but it was a little and he knew he had to go and fast. He passed by the school and did not heed the school bell calling to him and he walked to the next village and on to the big road. He waited among people for a truck and fear began to catch upon him; by now he was hungry and he bought fatty cakes for five cents. Then he climbed in at the back of the truck with the rest of the people. Off went the truck, north, south, he did not know. Only there was a piece of metal in the bottom of the truck, some kind of rasp, and he worked with this until he had got the sinew off his ankle and he dropped it over the side so that it would be run over by many other trucks. It was harder to get at the arm one and he only managed to scrape his own skin before the truck stopped in a big town.
Now it must be said that Kobedi was lucky; after a short time of hunger and fear he got a job sweeping out a small shop and going with heavy parcels. He was also allowed to sleep on a pile of sacks under the counter, though he must be careful to let nobody know, especially not the police. But under the sacks was a loose board and below it he had a tin, and into this he put money out of his wages, a few cents at a time. He heard about a school that was held in the evenings after work; he did not speak to anyone about it, and indeed he had no friends in the big town because it seemed to him that friends meant losing one’s little money at playing dice games or taking one’s turn to buy a coke; and still his arm itched.
When he had enough money he went one evening to the school and said he had been in Standard Three and he wanted to go on with education and had money to buy it. The white man who was the head teacher asked him where he came from. He said from Talane, which was by no means the name of his village, and also that his father was dead and there was no money to pay for school. The truth is too precious and dangerous to be thrown anywhere. So the man was sorry for him and said well, he could sit with the others and try how he did.
At this time Kobedi worked all day and went to classes in the evening and still he was careful not to become too friendly, in case the friend was an enemy. There was a knife in the shop, but it was blunt, and though he sawed at the sinew on his arm he could not get it off. Sometimes he dreamed about whispering in the night and woke frozen. Sometime he thought his mother would come suddenly through the door of the shop and claim him. If she did, could the night school help him?
One of the Motswana teachers took notice of him and let him come to his room to do homework, since this was not possible in the shop. There were some books in the teacher’s room and a photograph of himself with others at the T.T.C.; after a while Kobedi began to like this teacher, Mr. Tshele, and half thought that one day he would tell him what his fears were. But not yet. There came an evening when he was writing out sentences in English, at one side of the table where the lamp stood. Mr. Tshele had a friend with him; they were drinking beer. He heard the cans being opened and smelled the fizzing beer. At a certain moment he began to listen because Mr. Tshele was teasing his friend, who was hoping for a post in the civil service and had been to a doctor to get a charm to help him. “You believe in that!” said Mr. Tshele. “You are not modern. You should go to a cattle post and not to the civil service!”
“Everyone does the same,” said his friend, “perhaps it helps, perhaps not. I do not want to take risks. It is my life.”
“Well, it is certainly your money. What did he charge you?” The friend giggled and did not answer; the beer cans chinked again. “I am asking you another thing,” said Mr. Tshele, “This you have done at least brings no harm. But what about sorcery? Do you believe?”
The friend hesitated. “I have heard dreadful things,” he said, “What they do. Perhaps they are mad. Perhaps it no longer happens. Not in Botswana. Only perhaps— well, perhaps in Lesotho. Who knows? In the mountains.” Mr. Tshele leaned back in his chair. Kobedi ducked his head over his paper and pencil and pretended to be busy writing. “There is a case coming up in the High Court,” said Mr. Tshele. “My cousin who is a lawyer told me. A man is accused of medicine murder. The trial will be next week. They are looking for witnesses, but people are afraid to come forward.”
“But they must have found—something?”
“Yes, a dead child. Cut in a certain way. Pieces taken out. Perhaps even while the child was alive and screaming for help.”
“This is most dreadful,” said the friend, “and most certainly the man I went to about my civil service interview would never do such a thing!”
“Maybe not,” said Mr. Tshele, “not if he can get your money a safer way! Mind you, I myself went to a doctor who was a registered herbalist when I had those headaches, and he threw the ditaola and all that, but most certainly he did not murder.”
“Did he cure your headaches?”
“Yes, yes, and it was cheaper than going to the chemist’s shop. He rubbed the back of my neck and also gave me a powder to drink. Two things. It was a treatment, a medical treatment, not just a charm. I suppose you also go for love charms?”
Again the friend giggled, and Kobedi was afraid they would now only speak about girls. He wanted to know more, more, about the man who had cut out the heart— and the liver—and stripped off the fat for rubbing, as he remembered the whispering in the night. But they came back to it. “This man, the one you spoke of who is to be tried, he is from where?” the friend asked. And Mr. Tshele carelessly gave the name of the village. His village. The name, the shock, the knowledge, for it must indeed and in truth be the Good Man. Kobedi could not speak, could not move. He stared at the lamp and the light blurred and pulsed with the strong terrible feeling he had in him like the vomiting of the soul.
He did not speak that evening. Nor the next. He wondered if the Good Man wr. in a strong jail, but if so surely he could escape, taking some form, a vulture, a great crow? And his mother? And the other women, the whisperers? But the evening after that, in the middle of a dusty open space near the school where nobody could be hiding to listen, he touched Mr. Tshele’s coat and looked up at him, for he did not yet come to a man’s shoulder height. Mr. Tshele bent down, thinking this was some school trouble. It was then that Kobedi whispered the name of his village and when Mr. Tshele did not immediately understand: “Where that one who is to be tried comes from. I know him.”
“You? How?” said Mr. Tshele and then Kobedi began to tell him everything and the dust blew round them and he began to cry and Mr. Tshele wiped his dusty tears away and took him to a shop at the far side of the open space and gave him an ice lolly on a stick. He had seen boys sucking them, but for him it was the first time and great pleasure.
Then Mr. Tshele said, “Come with me,” and took him by the hand and they went together to the house of his cousin the lawyer, which was set in a garden with fruit trees and tomato plants and flowers and a thing which whirled water. Inside it was as light as a shop and Kobedi’s bare feet felt a soft and delicious carpet under them. “Here is your witness in the big case!” said Mr. Tshele, and then to Kobedi: “Tell him!” But Kobedi could not speak of it again.
But they gave him a drink that stung a little on the tongue and was warm in the stomach, and in a while Kobedi was able to say again what he had said to his teacher and it came more easily. “Good,” said the cousin who was a lawyer. “Now, little one, will you be able to say this in the Court? If you can do it you will destroy a great evil. Modimo will be glad of you.” Kobedi nodded and then he whispered to Mr. Tshele, “It will come better if you take this off me,” and he showed them the sinew with the medicine. The two men looked at one another and the lawyer fetched a strong pair of scissors and cut through the sinew; then he took it into the kitchen, and before Kobedi’s eyes he put it with his own hand into the stove and poked the wood into a blaze so that it was consumed altogether. After that Kobedi told the lawyer the shop where he worked. “So now,” said the lawyer, “no word to any other person. This is between us three. Khudu Thamaga.”
That night Kobedi slept quickly without dreaming. Two days later a big car stopped at the shop where he was sweeping out the papers and dirt and spittle of the customers. The lawyer came to the door and called him: “You have not spoken? Good. But in Court you will speak.” Then the lawyer gave some money to the man at the shop to make up for taking his servant, and when they were in the car he explained to Kobedi how it would be. The accused here, the witness there. “I will ask you questions,” he said, “and you will answer and it will be only the truth. Look at the Judge in the high seat behind the table where men write. Do not look at the accused man. Never look at him. Do you understand?” Kobedi nodded. The lawyer went on, “Speak in Setswana when I question you, even if you know some English words which my cousin says you have learnt. These things of which you will tell cannot be spoken in English. But show also that you know a little. You can say to the Judge, ‘I greet you, Your Honour.’ Repeat that. Yes, that is right. Your Honour is the English name for a Judge and this is a most important Judge.”, . •
So in a while the car stopped and Kobedi was put into a room and given milk and sandwiches with meat in them and he waited. The time came when he was called into the Court and a man helped him and told him not to be afraid. He kept his eyes down and saw nothing, but the man touched his shoulder and said, “There is His Honour the Judge.” So Kobedi looked up bravely and greeted the Judge, who smiled at him and asked if he knew the meaning of an oath. At all times there was an interpreter in the Court and there seemed to be very many people, who sometimes made a rustling sound like dry leaves of mealies, but Kobedi carefully looked only at the Judge. So he took his oath; there was a Bible, such as he had seen at his first school. And then the lawyer began to ask him questions and he answered, so that the story grew like a tree in front of the Judge.
Now it came to the whisperers in the midnight room and what they had shown him of their purpose; the lawyer asked him who there were besides the accused. Kobedi answered that one was his mother. And as he did so there was a scream and it came from his mother herself. “Wicked one, liar, runaway, oh how I will beat you!” she yelled at him until a policewoman took her away. But he had turned towards her, and suddenly he had become dreadfully unhappy. And in his unhappiness he looked too far and in a kind of wooden box half a grown person’s height, he saw the Good Man.
