Day of blood

dayofblood

Lya Solms shook out the last of the laundry with a hearty slap and pegged the trouser legs to the line. Then she tipped the bath of blued water onto the grass, scraped steel wool over the cake of soap and fell to scouring the buckets and basins with short fast strokes.

She kept an eye on the shadows, lengthening at the corner of the water tank. Early this morning, before she came to the farmhouse, she'd put her own washing in to soak and mixed the yeast and flour, rolling it into a ball. It was still to be kneaded.

"White and coloured on the line," she said to herself. Then, in anticipation, "And tough and tender in the pot." A sheep was to be slaughtered later today. In her imagination, she was already stripping the fat from the wether's offal. She could almost smell the roasted crackling of the tail fat.

The sun blazed down on her shoulders. It was a sweltering hot day. The turn of the season sometimes brought such heat that a sulphurous smell rose from the rocks--as if the devil was hauling you once more over the coals for old times' sake before autumn's gold flamed in the trees. Not a good day for slaughter. On days like this the mugginess collected in the thatch and came down on you at night. The meat could go off too. But there were workers in the orchards who had to have rations.

Lya rinsed the clean buckets in the overflow trough, turned them over to drip on the washing stone and stuck the laundry blue, tied in its cloth, up out of reach. Then she swallowed the last drops of her cold midday coffee, rinsed out the mug and gathered her things together. Her children were lying in the sun: the small one sleeping under a nappy, and the lame one with his grubby face. He watched her with clear bright eyes and tried to raise himself up when he realized it was time to go. She tied the baby onto her back, swung the lame one up onto her arm, and went to take her leave of the farmer's wife.

At the back door she was given her laundry money, a paper bag of coffee and sugar, and a pilchard sandwich. She was told she could keep the sliver of left-over soap for her own washing.

"And don't forget we're slaughtering. Come up when you see the shepherd's brought the sheep into the farmyard," said the farmer's wife.

She followed the well-trodden path down to the river, over the dam wall, up the slope opposite and past the row of identical squat thatched cottages. The Solms family lived in the last cottage, a little way from the others, near the spinney of wild olives. One room and a kitchen, with a window, a door, and a chimney. And a worn verandah that was raised just enough to keep the pig from the back door.

School must be out because the chimney was smoking and the top half of the door was open.

An aproned Mimi had already done the kneading--a double loaf waited in the paraffin-tin pan.

"Mother," she said to Lya as the woman stooped under the low lintel and put the lame child down on the threshold, "Lewis and the others have got potatoes in the coals again."

Lya snatched the rod from behind the door and whacked it down on the table. The two brats dashed past her and she swung in the air missing them. "Why are you so disobedient? You can go to bed hungry tonight." The farmer was getting very strict about the potato harvest and he checked personally that not too many went astray. You couldn't just go and help yourself any more.

It was getting more and more difficult to fill the children's stomachs every night. Yellow marrows and damaged potatoes weren't enough.

At least tonight she could count on the pluck. They didn't eat lung in the farmhouse, and if she cleaned the head, she'd probably also get the nose. She totted it up while she took the baby off her back and suckled it.

"You must run to the shop," she told Mimi, "and then help me to fetch water. I don't know if there's time to wash before they slaughter."

The coins she'd earned with the laundry that day lay on her palm and she flicked them apart with a thumb, thoughtful then practical: two candies, a bottle of lamp oil, a box of matches, a packet of tobacco, a packet of curry powder. Sugar? No, then there wouldn't be enough for coffee, and the pinch from the farmhouse kitchen was already sweetened. But suddenly she longed for something tasty. After a brief tussle she gave way to the desire: "And a packet of crisps."

"And a jelly mouse for me? For the trip?"

"Mouse!" The lame one raised his torso. He paddled himself forward with his elbows and hung halfway up the table leg.

"All right, bring two mice. But you'd better make it snappy. Jackie, let go of the tablecloth, if you pull my crockery off ... ! Lewis, come and take the child." But Lewis was out of earshot so she put Jackie outside with the hens. She couldn't risk leaving him in the house alone, he turned everything upside down.

Everything she had was hard-earned and there was no money for replacements. And there never would be. They were poor. Jan Solms's clothes were patched all over. Mimi's dresses were too tight, the younger children's hand-me-downs were worn thin. These days they were short of everything --bedding and warm clothes--and they were behind with their payments. It was bad if you fell behind and couldn't afford to bury your dead. There was nothing else for it: she'd have to take the children to pick rushes this weekend. They said six cents for a decent bundle and Mimi was already quite handy at it. She could look for more laundry work and Mrs. Radyn from the brown people's school sometimes had darning and mending to be done.

She'd also get paid for cleaning the offal.

There was a threatening closeness in the air and the clouds banked up like great cauliflowers over the mountain.

Lya stood at her washing bath with her burden of guilt. It was she who had brought ill-fortune upon their household while Jackie was still a baby. She had contracted milk fever and had to bottle feed him. Jan Solms had exchanged a sow and piglets for a nanny goat in milk so they had enough milk for the baby and themselves. Jackie was as fat as butter and right through the winter they'd eaten curds sweetened with cinnamon sugar. Those were the good old days.

Then one afternoon when the baby had reached the crawling stage, she was standing at the stove stirring a pot of food, when she heard something behind her. At first she thought it was the child under the table, but when she looked round, she saw it was a woman, and then she looked again, she saw the woman's eyes. They were two flames. She got such a fright, she shouted a terrible curse at the woman. With that, the milk boiled over behind her and when she looked round again, the woman had disappeared.

It was the fire witch, Aunty Katy told her, and she'll be angry because you cursed her.

One afternoon when the men were busy among the peach trees and she was down at the spring with her washing, a black storm brewed. The wind howled and a great bolt of lightning shot down into the gum tree where their cow was tethered. Just one streak of fire, the smell of sulphur and the tree was shriveled black and their cow lay under it, burnt through. That was the beginning of their troubles.

She had to go out looking for a little skim milk for Jackie. He suffered. One day he got milk fever and she and Aunt Katy did all they could but he didn't improve so they took him to the doctor and he was sent to hospital. When he came back he looked like he did now--his little legs so crooked he could only drag himself along.

Indeed, she suffered for that curse.

Lya kept an eye on the farmyard while she did her washing. She had only to rinse the clothes by the time they started slaughtering. "We won't get it up tonight," she told Mimi, "so take it in otherwise the hens will sleep on it."

"Lewis," she shouted as she went down to the river, "when I call you, come and get the pluck. And see that you fetch some water and look after the children."

She was a very deft assistant at the slaughter. She made a fire under the black three-legged pot full of water and took the carcass from the men.

The farmer's wife brought a dish for the liver and kidneys. "You take the heart and that fat and roast it for yourselves." And the delicious sweetbreads.

Lewis came to collect the newspaper-wrapped parcel. "Give it to Mimi so she can get on with cooking it," Lya told him.

In no time, the sheep was hanging. Then she tackled the offal. There was no one on the farm better than Lya with offal. But today it seemed more difficult than usual.

"I must get another blade," she apologized, embarrassed about the delay. "My one isn't scraping so well."

The weather was closing in and the wind gusted against the fire. She pushed the burning logs in further and moved the blue bath that held the clean stomach and feet.

Lightning flashed now and then. But a long way away. The labourers, who'd knocked off, stood waiting at the cellar door for their ration of wine.

The farmer's wife came to see how she was getting on. "If you've finished with the head, leave the chopping and the rest of the cleaning until tomorrow morning."

But tomorrow she wanted to rinse her washing and then take the children up the valley to look for casual work--cleaning onions or hanging tobacco... Without stopping or even looking up, she said: "It's all right, I'll soon be finished. I fed the baby before I came up." She battled a bit with the tuft of wool between the sheep's ears, then at last the head lay in the basin with the rest of the offal.

She tipped the pot of water off the fire and collected the knives together. Just as she picked up the basin to take it to the chopping block, a clap of thunder set the earth trembling. The wind ripped the paper on the block to shreds. Lya chopped with short deft strokes, each one falling exactly where she meant it to. She chopped the nose off and clove the skull open, then she trimmed it here and there, fast and efficiently.

A few loose sheets of iron clattered somewhere.

Someone screamed and all hell broke loose. "The lightning has set fire to Jan Solms's house!" someone yelled. "Run, Jan!"

"Lya!" the people cried. "Your house!"

Standing with the basin of offal in her hands, she watched the black smoke shot through with tongues of flame rising from her house. Then the wind whipped the flames up to consume the roof.

"My house is burning!" Lya took a few steps forward, then froze. She turned with the basin of offal in her hands. The flames leaped up, vivid against the black thunder clouds. "My children, where are they?"

Jan Solms took a short cut through the mandarin trees.

The farm truck revved, leaded with workers and their spades.

"Put the basin down and go to see what's happened to your children. Run, Lya!" someone yelled.

She hardly felt the bramble thorns that scratched her as she rushed down to the river and up the other side. She'd once seen a child who'd fallen into a coal fire. And the charred cow lying under the gum tree.

One of the women had her baby. The lame one was hanging on to Mimi. He collapsed against her and she grabbed hold of him. His bottom was bare and he was shaking, but not from cold because even from a distance the fire was blazing hot.

"Ma," he howled. "Ma!" and clung to her neck with his strong, sticky little hands. As she comforted him she could smell his singed hair. The fire crackled in the roof. Everything in the house was old and tinder dry and it burnt like petrol. The men flattened the grass all round to stop the fire from spreading.

Little by little. the roof caved in. When the wind caught them, the rafters glowed in the darkness and sparks leapt out like fireworks. Quite beautiful.

Grandma Ruth said: "Mimi was still out getting water with the two cans. Next thing I knew, she was screaming and when I looked, she'd thrown the cans down and she was running and then I realized everything was covered with smoke. I shouted to her--'Get the children.' With Jackie it was touch and go--he was in the bed. He wouldn't have stood a chance if Mimi hadn't got him out because the fire was already at the door."

Mimi was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Bring some sugar water, she's had a terrible shock."

"They could both have been burnt to death."

In the glow of the fire, they saw the skeleton of their lantern standing on the low wall between the bedroom and the kitchen.

Of all that had been in the house, it was the only thing she could still recognize. Everything else was burnt. Lya stood mute.

Her children were safe but they had nothing to sleep on tonight, no mug to drink from, no candle, not a pinch of coffee, or a single cent. The fire had taken everything: her table and the crockery, the portraits on the wall, the scrap of carpet on the bedroom floor, the clothes chest behind the bed with her good dress and Jan's black suit.

Lya covered her face with her hands. Twenty rand at the farm store, a rand a week, but the rand hadn't been there for more than one week... almost a year before she was square. How would she ever get it together again?

"Even the stove," said Grandma Ruth.

"With the bread in the oven. And the offal and fat." The pots and pans, the water scoop, chairs, the footbath, the sleeping mats... Lya Solms stood with wet cheeks and before the ruins of her house. It creaked and collapsed. The end had come.

Smoked curled up from the rubble.

Her guilt had been expurgated, Lya thought, turning away. She was surrounded by the people she knew. They all chipped in. Everyone was good to her. The farmer instructed someone to clean out the unoccupied house next to Annie and George's. Lya's family were taken back to the farmhouse in the pick-up. There they were given an evening meal and a bit of everything to take away with them--maize meal, coffee, candies, and blankets from the bed in the outside room. Food and shelter for the night.

As it always is with a fire, the news spread quickly up the valley. And everyone who knew Lya came up with something. They were given food. Cheese, butter, jam, tea, canned milk and rice. They were given clothes. By the boxful. Summer clothes and winter clothes--all wearable. A kettle, a bucket and some crockery. The old man at the shop sent two flowery enamel plates with matching mugs. One woman sent tea-towels and a basin. Someone brought a table that only needed a little attention from Jan.

When the farmer's wife came down in the late afternoon with a pail of milk to see how they were doing, the house was filled with the fragrance of cabbage, stewing slowly on the open hearth. The crooked table stood securely against the wall, draped with a checked cloth that reached the floor.

And Lya was glowing. Yesterday she had been stripped to the bone, naked as the day she was born. For one moment she'd even wished the fire would take her too and make an end to it all. Now she had everything and more. Even a bed with an inner-spring mattress. She'd been down and out on a pallet of straw and now she had a soft bed and an almost-new wool blanket.

She had flour in the house and milk and she was going to make some curds with stick cinnamon and plenty of sugar. "Mickey, bring in some wood and get Jackie out from under the table. He's in the sugar again. I'd smack you!" Jackie was suddenly still as a mouse under the long tablecloth.

Lya sang as she rolled her dough out, sprinkled it with flour and then folded it over again. "Dear Lord, draw near for our feast, fill our hearts with gladness and your Holy Spirit..."

And she tried to work out what she'd heat the milk in--she was still short of pots.

Then, over the sharp aroma of the summer cabbage, she recognized an unmistakable smell. She glanced anxiously up to the roof, sniffed, then looked down at the floor. A piece of kindling had fallen from the fire and set fire to the sweepings she's pushed into a small pile. The flames were licking at the green and red checked tablecloth.

Lya stared at the fast-growing hole in the cloth. Fire, she thought, glancing quickly over her shoulder. Then hot rage overwhelmed her. She had paid. Her debt of guilt had been wiped out. What did the fire want with her now? She picked up the basin of sweetened milk and flung it in an arc under the table, over the burning cloth and the glowing kindling.

Jackie gave a horrified shriek and scrambled out between her legs, dripping wet. Breathing heavily, she stared at the wet patch her milk left as it sank into the floor.

She put the basin down and bent to pick up the child tenderly. Then she went outside into the cool breeze of evening that steamed up the valley.