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The
trees are the same here, the soil, the sky, the air all the same
as on the other side of the wire. But she is different.
A trespasser. She walks farther in, until the fence is no
longer in sight. When she reaches a conical mound of dried
mud, a termite mound in the shade, she sits down and removes her
cardigan, glad to feel the air on her bare arms. Silence closes
in on her. But then she picks out the sounds of birds, the
chattering of finches, the soft call of a dove, then the flash of
tawny brown and white as a hoopoe sails through the branches or
an acacia, a wriggling grub in its long beak.
In this unknown country,
this wild place, she is nobody, she is unknown. She is not
Marit, not Mevrou Laurens, not the farmer's wife, not the new bride,
not the girl who lost her parents, not the Missus, not the one who
walks and is watched. Here there is nobody to see her.
She is nobody. Here is a place to forget and be forgotten.
She sees the shrubs and
trees and the long grass, but her mind takes no notice of what is
there as her unconsciousness drifts into a state of half awareness,
as she forgets herself and her trespasses. Her eyelids droop
like those of a cat, the world dissolves in a haze of light.
She is free of the burden of her self. She is alone.
She is nobody.
Time has no substance when she lapses
into these states. Time stops, becomes nonexistent, as if
she steps out of the flow. She is aware, but her usual consciousness
is suspended. It is not a state that could be characterized
as happiness, yet she is happy, after a fashion.
A rustle sounds in the
trees nearby, the movement of leaves, the sharp snap of a twig breaking
- the motion of another presence on the earth. Marit rises
quickly to her feet. She hears the careful tread of footsteps.
stealthy, then silence. The birds have ceased their chattering.
All the fear rushes back,
all the awareness. She is not alone, she is watched.
Her eyes move across the screen of brush, peering into the dappled
green and brown. Nothing. Nobody. Her heart flutters
rapidly in her chest.
Nobody, yet she is watched.
She feels it in the silence and the suspension that fills the air.
Her ears strain to catch the slightest sound, the slightest movement.
And it comes again, the furtive footsteps.
"Who is it?"
she calls.
The movement stops.
She feels herself watched, seen by the unseen.
She decides to run.
All her muscles tense for flight.
In that moment as she
poises to flee, a face peers at her from among the leaves.
Dark eyes meet hers and hold her transfixed.
The footsteps shuffle
again and the face pushes forward through the leaves. A long
muzzle, a white chevron down the bridge of the nose, large almond-shaped
eyes.
The animal steps into
the clearing. A kudu, jaws slowly chewing, shell-like ears
swiveled in her direction, brown eyes focused upon Marit.
A long sigh of relief shudders through her chest as she breathes
again.
The fear drains from Marit,
flowing away like water, and she is left trembling and grateful.
Only a buck, only an animal. Only a kudu, studying her with
cow-like eyes. The antelope steps into the clearing delicately,
dainty for an animal of that size, for it is almost as big as a
horse. Above the mild brown eyes, and the shell-like
ears turned in her direction, are corkscrew horns, heraldic, regal,
like a royal headdress. On the tan hide, thin white vertical
stripes are like further emblems of royalty. A bearded fringe
dangles below the animal's chin, brushing its neck.
Recovering from her fright,
Marit is left grateful and trembling, seized for a moment with an
almost overwhelming desire to embrace the kudu. Could it be
the very same kudu she saw that first day she came to the farm with
Ben, when they disturbed one as it was drinking at the river?
Kudu-fontein, the name of this farm, given for the presence of this
animal.
Marit remembers a picture
she saw as a girl, in a book of paintings, of a walled garden and
a lady in white kneeling before a white unicorn that had the same
expression on its face as this kudu. The desire to embrace
the animal, to touch it, comes upon her again.
Marit feels herself in
the presence of some wise and beneficent dignitary, a creature from
mythology, something priestly and good. And in this presence
she feels herself also to be good and wise and without malice or
harm. Slowly she lowers herself to her knees and folds her
hands before her chest, in a gesture of prayer, of worship.
The kudu dips its head and looks at her, wide black nostrils flaring
slightly to take in her scent. She smells the kudu's breath,
a scent of warm grass.
She looks up into the
creature's eyes and sees no guile, no malice, no fear, only the
kudu's knowledge of itself. She sees its soul. And her
own soul is tarnished and flawed in comparison, compromised in some
manner that she fears will never be purified.
Gently she reaches up
to touch the bearded fringe, to stroke the chevron of white across
the nose, to be taken up onto that strong back.
She is emptied of doubt,
of trespass, of fear.
"I am Marit,"
she whispers.
The kudu ceases chewing
for a moment, then emits a soft pant, like an answer, and again
she smells the warm scent of grass, the very breath of the animal.
She stretches her hand
forward, wanting just one touch, and she feels the warm breath on
the tips of her extended fingers. Then the kudu steps back,
and the regal head reaches up, and the wide shell-like ears swivel
away. It turns without looking at her and moves back into
the trees, unconcerned.
The soft thud of the footsteps
fades and the rustling of the leaves fades, and the silence returns.
The tears that come to
her eyes are hot and bitter, and filled with great sadness.
Some great opportunity has passed. As if the hope of grace
has been offered, then withdrawn from her forever. She remains
kneeling on the ground, head bowed, hands clasped.
Eventually, Marit rises
to her feet, a supplicant whose prayers have remained unacknowledged,
and she is chastened and disappointed. She rises and brushes
away the dust from her knees and turns again to the way she has
come, to the farm, to the fence, to the house where she must live.
As she walks slowly back to the house
Marit recalls a story she once was told of a traveler who lived
amongst the Bushmen of the desert, those nomadic wanderers who slept
under the stars and carried nothing and left nothing behind, moving
with the winds of the seasons. The traveler asked them one
day, How is it that you never become lost? They had no maps
and there were no roads, no signposts, yet the Bushmen moved unerringly
to where there was water, and food, moving like the breezes of the
desert.
They laughed at the question,
for it was strange to them. How can we become lost, they said.
The birds know us, the animals know us, the wind knows us.
At night the stars see us and they know where we are. So then,
how can we become lost?
But nobody knows me, Marit thinks.
And I am lost."
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