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The love affair began in the summer. The love affair began in those dim dark days when young men and women did not have love affairs. It was one of those summers when it rained in torrents. Almost every afternoon towards sunset the low-hanging, rain-filled clouds would sweep across the sky in packed masses and suddenly, with barely a warning, the rain would pour down in blinding sheets of waters.

The young women and little girls were still out in the forest gathering wood that afternoon when the first warning signs of rain appeared in the sky. They hastily gathered up their bundles of wood and began running home to escape the approaching storm. Suddenly one of young women halted painfully. In her haste she had trodden on a large thorn which had entered the back of her heel.

‘Hurry on home, Monosi!’ she cried to a little girl panting behind her. ‘I have to get this thorn out of my foot. If the rain catches me, I shall find some shelter and come home once it is over.’

Without a backward glance the little girl sped on after the hard-running group of wood gatherers. The young woman was quite alone with the approaching storm. The thorn proved difficult to extract. It had broken off and embedded itself deeply in her heel. A few heavy drops of rain beat down on her bare back; the sky darkened.

Anxiously she looked around for the nearest shelter and saw a cavern in some rocks at the base of a hill nearby. She picked up her bundle of wood and limped hastily towards it, with the drops of rain pounding down faster and faster. She had barely entered the cavern when the torrent unleashed itself in a violent downpour. Her immediate concern was to seek its sanctuary, but a moment later her heart lurched in fear as she realised that she was not alone. The warmth of some other human form filled the interior. She swung around swiftly and found herself almost face to face with a young man.

‘We can shelter here together from the storm,’ he said with quiet authority.

His face was as kind and protective as his words. Reassured, the young woman set down her bundle of sticks in the roomy interior of the cavern and together they seated themselves near its entrance. The roar of the rain was deafening, so that even the thunder and lightning was muffled by its intensity. With quiet, harmonious movements the young man undid a leather pouch tied at his waist. He spent all his time cattle herding and to while away the long hours he busied himself with all kinds of leather work, assembling skins into clothes and blankets. He had a large number of sharpened implements in his pouch and in gesture he indicated to the young woman that he wished to extract the thorn from her foot.

She extended her foot towards him. For some time he busied himself with this task, gently whittling away the skin around the area until he had exposed the thorn sufficiently to extract it.

The young woman looked at his face with interest and marvelled at the ease and comfort she felt in his presence. In their world men and women lived lives strictly apart, especially the young and unmarried. This sense of apartness and separateness continued even throughout married life and marriage itself seemed to have no significance beyond a union for the production of children. This wide gap between the sexes created embarrassment on the level of personal contact; the young men often slid their eyes away uneasily or giggled at the sight of a woman. The young man did none of this. He had stared her directly in the eyes; all his movements were natural and unaffected. He was also very pleasing to look at.

She thanked him with a smile once he had extracted the thorn and folded her extended foot beneath her. The violence of the storm abated a little, but the heavily laden sky continued to pour forth its moisture in a steady downpour.

She had vaguely seen the young man around the village; she could vaguely place his family connections.

‘Aren’t you the son of Rra-Keaja?’ she asked. She had a light chatty voice with an undertone of laughter in it, very expressive of her personality. She liked above all to be happy.

‘I am the very Keaja he is named after,’ the young man replied with a smile. ‘I am the first born in the family.’

‘I am the first born in the family too,’ she said. ‘I am Tselane, the daughter of Mma-Tselane.’

His family ramifications were vastly more complicated than hers. His father had three wives. All the first born: of the first, second and third were boys. The children totalled eight in number, three boys and five girls, he explained. It was only when the conversation moved into deep water that Tselane realised that a whole area of the young man’s speech had eluded her. His was the extreme opposite of her light chatty tone. He talked from deep rhythms within himself as though he had specifically invented language for his own use. He had an immense range of expression and feeling at his command; now his eyes lit up with humour, then they were absolutely serious and in earnest. He swayed almost imperceptibly as he talked. He talked like no one she had ever heard talking before, yet all his utterances were direct, simple and forthright. She bent forward and listened more attentively to his peculiar manner of speech.

‘I don’t like my mother,’ he said shockingly. ‘I am her only son simply because my father stopped cohabiting with her after I was born. My father and I are alike. We don’t like to be controlled by anyone and she made his life a misery when they were newly married. It was as if she had been born with a worm eating at her heart because she is satisfied by nothing. The only way my father could control the situation was to ignore her completely…’

He remained silent a while, concentrating on his own thoughts.

‘I don’t think I approve of all the arranged marriages we have here,’ he said finally. ‘My father would have never married her had he had his own choice. He was merely presented with her one day by his family and told that they were to be married and there was nothing he could do about it.’

He kept silent about the torture he endured from his mother. She hated him deeply and bitterly. She had hurled stones at him and scratched him on the arms and legs in her wild frustration. Like his father, he eluded her. He rarely spent time at home but kept the cattle post as his permanent residence. When he approached home it was always with some gift of clothes or blankets. On that particular day he had an enormous gourd filled with milk.

The young woman, Tselane, floundered out of her depth in the face of such stark revelations. They lived the strictest of traditional ways of life; all children were under the control of their parents until they married, therefore it was a taboo to discuss their elders. In her impulsive chatty way and partly out of embarrassment, it had been on the tip of her tongue to say that she liked her mother, that her mother was very kind-hearted. But there was a disturbing undertone in her household, too. Her mother and father — and she was sure of it due to her detailed knowledge of her mother’s way of life — had not cohabited together for years, either. A few years ago her father had taken another wife. She was her mother’s only child. Oh, the surface of their household was polite and harmonious, but her father was rarely at home. His mood was always irritable and morose when he was home.

‘I am sorry about all the trouble in your home,’ she said at last, in a softer, more thoughtful tone. She was shaken at having been abruptly jolted into completely new ways of thought.

The young man smiled and then quite deliberately turned and stared at her. She stared back at him with friendly interest. She did not mind his close scrutiny of her person; he was easy to associate with, comfortable, truthful and open in his every gesture.

‘Do you approve of arranged marriages?’ he asked, still smiling.

‘I have not thought of anything,’ she replied truthfully.

The dark was approaching rapidly. The rain had trickled down to a fine drizzle. Tselane stood and picked up her bundle of wood. The young man, Keaja, grasped hold of his gourd of milk. They were barely visible figures as they walked home together in the dark. Tselane’s home was not too far distant from the hill. She lived on the extreme western side of the village; Keaja on the extreme eastern side.

* * * * *

A bright fire burned in the hut they used as a cooking place on rainy days. Tselane’s mother had a visitor and she sat bent forward on her low stool, listening with deep engrossed attention to her visitor’s tale. It was always like this — her mother was permanently surrounded by women who confided in her. The whole story of life unfolded daily around her stool; the ailments of children, women who had just had miscarriages, women undergoing treatment for barren wombs – the story was endless. It was the great pleasure of Tselane to seat herself quietly behind her mother’s stool and listen with fascinated ears to this endless tale of woe. Her mother’s visitor that evening was on the tail end of a description of one of her children’s ailments: chronic epilepsy, which seemed beyond cure. The child seemed in her death throes and the mother was just at the point of demonstrating the violent seizures when Tselane entered.

Tselane quietly set her bundle of wood down in the corner and the conversation continued uninterrupted. She took her favoured place behind her mother’s stool. Her father’s second wife, Mma-Monosi, was seated on the opposite side of the fire, her face composed and serious. Her child, the little girl Monosi, fed and attended to, lay fast asleep on a sleeping mat in one corner of the hut.

Tselane loved the two women of the household equally. They were both powerful independent women, but with sharply differing personalities. Mma-Tselane was a queen who vaguely surveyed the kingdom she ruled, with an abstracted, absentminded air. Over the years of her marriage she had built up a way of life for herself that filled her with contentment. She was reputed to be very delicate in health as, following on the birth of Tselane, she had suffered a number of miscarriages and seemed incapable of bearing any more children. Her delicate health was a source of extreme irritation to her husband and at some stage he had abandoned her completely and taken Mma-Monosi as his second wife, intending to perpetuate his line and name through her healthy body. The arrangement well suited Mma-Tselane. She was entirely wrapped up in her ailments and her entertaining round of daily life. She had a serene, serious face. She was bighearted and broadminded and yet, conversely, she prided herself on being the meticulous upholder of all the traditions the community adhered to. Once Mma-Monosi became a part of the household, Mma-Tselane did no work but entertained and paid calls the day long. Mma-Monosi ran the entire household.

The two women were a perfect: complement to each other for, if Mma-Tselane was a queen, then Mma-Monosi was a humble worker. On the surface Mma-Monosi appeared as sane and balanced as Mma-Tselane, but there was another side of her personality that was very precariously balanced. Mma-Monosi took her trembling way through life. If all was stable and peaceful, then Mma-Monosi was stable and peaceful. If there was any disruption or disorder, Mma-Monosi’s precarious inner balance registered every wave and upheaval. She hungered for approval of her every action and could be upset for days if criticised or reprimanded.

So, between them. the two, women achieved a very harmonious household. Both were entirely absorbed in their full busy daily round; both were unconcerned that they received scant attention from the man of the household and Rra-Tselane was entirely concerned with his own affairs. He was a prominent member of the chief’s court and he divided his time between the chief’s court and his cattle post. He was rich in cattle and his herds were taken care of by servants. He was away at his cattle post at that time.

It was with Mma-Monosi that the young girl, Tselane, enjoyed her most free and happy relationship. They treated each other as equals, they both enjoyed hard work and whenever they were alone together they laughed and joked all the time. To her own mother Tselane was an object to whom she lowered her voice and issued commands between clenched teeth. Very soon Mma-Tselane stirred in her chair and said in that lowered voice: ‘Tselane, fetch me my bag of herbs.’

Tselane obediently stood up and hurried to her mother’s living quarters for the bag. Then another interval followed during which her mother and the visitor discussed the medicinal properties of the herbs. Then Mma-Monosi served the evening meal. Then the visitor departed with assurances that Mma-Tselane would call on her the following day. Then they sat for a while in companionable silence. At one stage, seeing that the fire was burning low, Mma-Tselane arose and selected a few pieces of wood from Tselane’s bundle to stoke up the fire.

‘Er, Tselane,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘Your wood is quite dry. Did you shelter from the storm?’

‘There is a cave in the hill not far from here, mother,’ Tselane replied. ‘And I sheltered there.’ She did not think it wise to add that she had shared the shelter with a young man; a lot of awkward questions of the wrong kind might have followed.

As it was, her mother cast her eyes vaguely over her daughter as much as to say that all was in order in her world; she always established simple facts about any matter and turned peacefully to the next task at hand. She suddenly decided that she was tired and would retire. Tselane and Mma-Monosi were left alone seated near the fire. Tselane was still elated by her encounter with the young man; so many unwanted thoughts were flying through her head.

‘I want to ask you some questions, Mma-Monosi,’ she said eagerly.

‘What is it you want to say, my child?’ Mma-Monosi said, stirring herself out of a thoughtless reverie.

‘Do you approve of arranged marriages, Mma-Monosi?’ she asked earnestly.

Mma-Monosi drew in her breath between her teeth with a sharp, hissing sound; then she lowered her voice in horror and said: ‘Tselane, you know quite well that I am your friend, but if anyone else heard you talking like that you would be in trouble! Such things are never discussed here! What put that idea into your head because it is totally unknown to me?’

‘But you question life when you begin to grow up,’ Tselane said defensively.

‘That is what you never, never do,’ Mma-Monosi said severely. ‘If you question life you will upset it. Life is always in order.’ She looked thoroughly startled and agitated. ‘I know of something terrible that once happened to someone who questioned life,’ she added grimly.

‘Who is this? What terrible thing happened?’ Tselane asked, in her turn agitated.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Mma-Monosi said firmly. ‘It is too terrible to mention.’

Tselane subsided into silence with a speculative look in her eyes. She understood Mma-Monosi well. She couldn’t keep a secret. She could always be tempted into telling a secret, if not today then on some other day. She determined to find out the terrible story.

* * * * *

When Keaja arrived home his family was eating the evening meal. He first approached the women’s quarters and offered them the gourd of milk.

“The cows are calving heavily,’ he explained. ‘There is a lot of milk and I can bring some home every day.’

He was greeted joyously by the second and third wife of his father who anxiously enquired after their sons who lived with him at the cattle post.

‘They are quite well,’ he said politely. ‘I settled them and the cattle before I left. I shall return again in the early morning because I am worried about the young calves.’

He avoided his mother’s baleful stare and tight, deprived mouth. She never had anything to say to him although, on his approach to the women’s quarters, he had heard her voice, shrill and harsh, dominating the conversation. His meal was handed to him and he retreated to his father’s quarters. He ate alone and apart from the women. A bright fire burned in his father’s living quarters. ‘Hello, Father-of-me,’ his father greeted him, making affectionate play on the name Keaja. Keaja meant: I am eating now because I have a son to take care of me.

His father doted on him. In his eyes there was no greater son than Keaja. After an exchange of greetings, his father asked: ‘And what is your news?’

He gave his father the same information about the cows calving heavily and the rich supply of milk; that his other two sons were quite well. They ate for a while in companionable silence. His mother’s voice rose shrill and penetrating in the silent night. Quite unexpectedly his father looked up with a twinkle in his eye and said: ‘Those extra calves will stand us in good stead, Father-of-me. I have just started negotiations about your marriage.’

A spasm of chill, cold fear almost constricted Keaja’s heart. ‘Whom am I to marry, father?’ he asked, alarmed.

‘I cannot mention the family name just yet,’ his father replied cheerfully, not sensing his son’s alarm. “The negotiations are still at a very delicate stage.’

‘Have you committed yourself in this matter, father?’ he asked, a sharp angry note in his voice.

‘Oh yes,’ his father replied. ‘I have given my honour in this matter. It is just that these things take a long time to arrange as there are many courtesies to be observed.’

‘How long?’ the son asked.

‘About six new moons may have to pass,’ his father replied. ‘It may even be longer than that. I cannot say at this stage.’

‘I could choose a wife for myself,’ the son said with deadly quietude. ‘I could choose my own wife and then inform you of my choice.’

His father stared at him in stunned surprise. ‘You cannot be different from everyone else,’ he said. ‘I must be a parent with a weakness that you can talk to me so.’

Keaja lowered his eyes to his eating bowl. There was no way in which he could voice a protest against his society because the individual was completely smothered by communal and social demands. He was a young man possessed by individual longings and passions; he had a nervous balance that either sought complete isolation or true companionship and communication, and for a long while all appeared in order with him because of the deceptive surface peace of his personality. Even that evening Keaja’s protest against arranged marriage was hardly heard by his father.

His father knew that he indulged his son, that they had free and easy exchanges beyond what was socially permissible in the society; even that brief exchange was more than all parents allowed their children. They arranged all details of their children’s future life and on the fatal day merely informed them that they were to be married to so-and-so. There was no point in saying: ‘I might not be able to live with so-and-so. She might be unsuited to me,’ so that when Keaja lapsed into silence, his father merely smiled indulgently and engaged him in small talk about irrelevant matters.

Keaja was certainly of a marriageable age. The previous year he had gone through his initiation ceremony. Apart from other trials endured during the ceremony, detailed instruction had been given to the young men of his age group about sexual relations between men and women. They were hardly private and personal, but affected by a large number of social regulations and taboos. If he broke the taboos at a personal and private level, death, sickness and great misfortune would fall upon his family. If he broke the taboos at a social level, death and disaster would fall upon the community. There were many periods in a man’s life when abstinence from sexual relations was required; often this abstinence had to be practised communally, as in the period preceding the harvest of crops, and only broken on the day of the harvest thanksgiving ceremony.

These regulations and taboos applied to men and women alike, but the initiation ceremony for women, which Tselane had also experienced the previous year, was much more complex in their instruction. A delicate balance had to be preserved between a woman’s reproductive cycle and the safety of the community; at almost every stage in her life a woman was a potential source of danger to the community. All women were given careful instruction in precautions to be observed during times of menstruation, childbirth and accidental miscarriages. Failure to observe the taboos could bring harm to animal life, crops and the community.

It could be seen then that the community held no place for people wildly carried away by their passions, that there was a logic and order in the carefully arranged sterile emotional and physical relationships between men and women. There was no one to challenge the established order of things; if people felt any personal unhappiness it was smothered and subdued and so life for the community proceeded from day to day in peace and harmony.

* * * * *

As all lovers do, they began a personal and emotional dialogue that excluded all life around them. Perhaps its pattern and direction was the same for all lovers, painful and maddening by turns in its initial insecurity. Who looked for whom? They could not say, except that the far western unpolluted end of the river where women drew water and the forests where they gathered firewood became Keaja’s favoured hunting grounds. Their work periods coincided at that time. The corn had just been sowed and the women were idling in the village until the heavy soaking rains raised the weed in their fields. Then their next busy period would follow when they hoed out the weed between their corn.

Keaja returned every day to the village with gourds of milk for his family and it did not take Tselane long to note that he delayed and lingered in her work areas until he had caught some glimpse of her. She was always in a crowd of gaily chattering young women. The memory of their first encounter had been so fresh and stimulating, so full of unexpected surprises in dialogue, that she longed to approach him.

One afternoon, while out gathering wood with her companions, she noticed his form among the distant bushes and contrived to remove herself from her companions. As she walked towards him, he quite directly approached her and took hold of her hand. She made no effort to pull her hand free. It rested in his as though it belonged there. They walked on some distance, then he paused and, turning to face her, he told her all he had on his mind in his direct, simple way. This time he did not smile at all.

‘My father will arrange a marriage for me after about six new moons have passed,’ he said. ‘I do not want that. I want a wife of my own choosing but all the things I want can only cause trouble.’

She looked away into the distance, not immediately knowing what she ought to say. Her own parents had given her no clue of their plans for her future; indeed, she had not had cause to think about it, but she did not like most of the young men of the village. They had a hangdog air as though society and its oppressive ways had broken their will. She liked everything about Keaja and she felt safe with him as on that stormy afternoon in the cavern when he had said: “We can shelter here together from the storm…’

‘My own thoughts are not complicated,’ he went on, still holding on to her hand. ‘I thought I would find out how you felt about this matter. I thought I would like to choose you as my wife. If you do not want to choose me in turn, I shall not pursue my own wants any longer. I might even marry the wife my father chooses for me.’

She turned around and faced him and spoke with a clarity of thought that startled her. ‘I am afraid of nothing,’ she said. ‘Not even trouble or death, but I need some time to find out what I am thinking.’

Of his own accord, he let go of her hand and so they parted and went their separate ways. From that point onwards, right until the following day, she lived in a state of high elation. Her thought processes were not at all coherent; indeed, she had not a thought in her head. Then the illogic of love took over. Just as she was about to pick up the pitcher in the late afternoon, she suddenly felt desperately ill, so ill that she was almost brought to the point of death. She experienced a paralysing lameness in her arms and legs. The weight of the pitcher with which she was to draw water was too heavy for her to endure.

She appealed to Mma-Monosi. ‘I feel faint and ill today,’ she said. ‘I cannot draw water.’

Mma-Monosi was only too happy to take over her chores but at the same time consulted anxiously with her mother about this sudden illness. Mma-Tselane, after some deliberation, decided that it was the illness young girls get in the limbs when they are growing too rapidly. She spent a happy three days doctoring her daughter with warm herbal drinks, as Mma-Tselane liked nothing better than to concentrate on illness. Still, the physical turmoil the young girl felt continued unabated; at night she trembled violently from head to toe. It was so shocking and new that for two days she succumbed completely to the blow.

It wasn’t any coherent thought processes that made her struggle desperately to her feet on the third day, but a need to quieten the anguish. She convinced her mother and Mma-Monosi that she felt quite well enough to perform her wood gathering chores. Towards the afternoon she hurried to the forest area, carefully avoiding her companions.

She was relieved, on meeting Keaja, to see his face bore the same anguished look that she felt.

He spoke first. ‘I felt so ill and disturbed,’ he said. ‘I could do nothing but wait for your appearance.’

They sat down on the ground together. She was so exhausted by her days of struggle that for a moment she leaned forward and rested her head on his knee. Her thought processes seemed to awaken once more because she smiled peacefully and said: ‘I want to think.’

Eventually she raised herself and with shining eyes looked at the young man.

‘I felt so ill,’ she said. ‘My mother kept on giving me herbal drinks. She said it was normal to feel faint and dizzy when one is growing. I know now what made me feel so ill. I was fighting my training. My training has told me people are not important in themselves, but you so suddenly became important to me, as a person. I did not know how to tell my mother all this. I did not know how to tell her anything, yet she was kind and took care of me. Eventually I thought I would lose my mind so I came here to find you…’

It was as if, from that moment onwards, they quietly and of their own willing married each other. They began to plan together how they should meet and when they should meet.

The young man was full of forethought and planning. He knew that, in the terms of his own society, he was starting a terrible mess, but then his society only calculated along the lines of human helplessness in the face of overwhelming odds. It did not calculate for human inventiveness and initiative.

He only needed the young girl’s pledge and from then onwards he took the initiative in all things. He was to startle and please her from that very day with his forethought. It was as if he knew that she would come at some time, that they would linger in joy with their lovemaking, so that when Tselane eventually expressed agitation at the lateness of the hour, he, with a superior smile, indicated a large bundle of wood nearby that he had collected for her to take home.

* * * * *

A peaceful interlude followed and the community innocently lived out its day by day life, unaware of the disruption and upheaval that would soon fall upon it. The women were soon out in the fields; hoeing weeds and tending their crops, Tselane among them, working side by side with Mma-Monosi, as she had always done. There was not even a ripple of the secret life she now lived; if anything, she worked harder and with greater contentment. She laughed and joked as usual with Mma-Monosi, but a sound instinct made her keep her private affair to herself.

When the corn was already high in the fields and about to ripen, Tselane realised that she was expecting a child. A matter that had been secret could be a secret no longer. When she confided this news to Keaja, he quite happily accepted it as part of all the plans he had made, for as he said to her at the time: ‘I am not planning for death when we are so happy. I want it that we should live.’

He had only one part of all his planning secure, a safe escape route outside the village and on to a new and unknown life they would make for themselves. They had made themselves outcasts from the acceptable order of village life and he presented her with two alternatives from which she could choose. The one alternative was simpler for them. They could leave the village at any moment and without informing anyone of their intentions. The world was very wide for a man. He had travelled great distances, both alone and in the company of other men, while on his hunting and cattle-herding duties. The area was safe for travel for some distance. He had sat around firesides and heard stories about wars and fugitives and other hospitable tribes who lived distances away and whose customs differed from theirs. Keaja had not been idle all this while. He had prepared all they would need for their journey and hidden their provisions in a secret place.

The second alternative was more difficult for them. They could inform their parents of their love and ask that they be married. He was not sure of the outcome, but it was to invite death or worse. It might still lead to the escape route out of the village as he was not planning for death.

Without hesitation, Tselane chose the second alternative because, as she pointed out, the first alternative would be too heartbreaking for their parents. They therefore decided on that very day to inform their parents of their love and name the date on which they wished to marry.

It was nearing dusk when Tselane arrived home with her bundle of wood. Her mother and Mma-Monosi were seated out in the courtyard, engaged in some quiet conversation of their own. Tselane set down her bundle, approached the two women and knelt down quietly by her mother’s side. Her mother turned towards her, expecting some request or message from a friend. There was no other way except for Tselane to convey her own message in the most direct manner possible.

‘Mother,’ she said, ‘I am expecting a child by the son of Rra-Keaja. We wish to be married by the next moon. We love each other…’

For a moment her mother frowned as though her child’s words did not make sense. Mma-Monosi’s body shuddered several times as though she were cold, but she maintained a deathly silence.

Eventually Tselane’s mother lowered her voice and said between clenched teeth: ‘You are to go to your hut and remain there. On no account are you to leave it without the supervision of Mma-Monosi.’

For a time Mma-Tselane sat looking into the distance, a broken woman. Her social prestige, her kingdom, her self-esteem crumbled around her in ruins.

A short while later her husband entered the yard. He had spent an enjoyable day at the chief’s court with other men. He now wished for his evening meal and retirement for the night. The last thing he wanted was conversation with women, so he looked up irritably as his wife appeared without his evening meal. She explained herself with as much dignity as she could muster. She was almost collapsing with shock.

He listened in disbelief and gave a sharp exclamation of anger. ‘I could kill her!’ he said.

Just at this moment Keaja’s father announced himself in the yard. He was quaking from head to foot. They prepared a place for him near the outdoor fireplace where they ate the evening meal.

His agitation was so great that he came straight to the point without a waste of words: ‘Rra-Tselane, I have just heard from my own son about the offence he has committed against your house, but he desires nothing more than to marry your child. If this would remove some of the offence, then I am agreeable to it.’

‘Rra-Keaja,’ Tselane’s father replied wrathfully. “You know as well as I that this marriage isn’t in the interests of your family or mine. It will never take place. Death is not good enough for my child!’

He stood up and walked violently into the night. His humiliation was too much for him to endure. He was important and prominent in public affairs and his pompous life crumbled in ruins around him. Brokenly Keaja’s father also stood up and walked out of the yard.

It was her husband’s words that shook Mma-Tselane out of her stupor of self-pity and humiliation. She had loved that quiet object who had sat for many years behind her low stool and in that instant she suddenly arose to her true stature as a mother. She hurried to her living quarters for her skin shawl, whispered a few words to Mma-Monosi about her mission and also walked off into the night.

Mma-Monosi stood for a moment alone and undecided in the yard, then she too sped off into the night after Rra-Keaja. On catching up with him she whispered urgently: ‘Rra-Keaja!’

He paused and turned towards her.

‘You may not know me,’ she said. ‘I am Mma-Monosi, the second wife of Rra-Tselane. I approach you because we now share this trouble which has come upon us. This matter will never be secret. Tomorrow it will be a public affair. The children have broken our customs and they will be judged accordingly. I therefore urge you to do as Mma-Tselane has done and make an appeal for your child at once. She has gone to the women’s compound of the chief’s house as she has many friends there. I also heard from your voice that you have a good heart. Send me the news of your house and I will send you mine.’

Her words lightened the old man’s heavy heart. With a promise to send her his news, he turned and walked in the direction of the chief’s yard. Mma-Monosi sped back to her own yard. Her imaginative inner imbalance was teetering in terror, but it was just in such situations that all the power of her personality awakened. She saw all the dangers ahead and she was already working to avert them. There was an urgency about her every movement. She lit a fire in Tselane’s hut, dished up their evening meal and, when they were seated opposite each other, she told the young girl all that had taken place up till that point.

‘Tselane,’ she said earnestly. ‘It is no light matter to break custom. You pay for it with your life. I should have told you the story that night we discussed custom. When I was a young girl we had a case such as this but not such a deep mess. The young man had taken a fancy to a girl and she to him. He therefore refused the girl his parents had chosen for him. They could not break him and so they killed him. They killed him, even though he had not touched the girl. But there is one thing I want you to know. I am your friend and I will die for you. No one will injure you while I am alive.’

Their easy, affectionate relationship returned to them. They talked for some time about the love affair, Mma-Monosi absorbing every word with delight.

A while later Mma-Tselane re-entered the yard. She was still too angry to talk to her own child, but she called Mma-Monosi to one side and informed her that she had won an assurance in high places that no harm would come to her child.

And so began a week of raging storms and wild irrational deliberations. It was a family affair. It was a public affair. As a public affair, it would bring ruin and disaster upon the community and public anger was high. Two parents showed themselves up in a bad light, the father of Tselane and the mother of Keaja. Rra-Tselane was adamant that the marriage would never take place. He preferred to sound death warnings all the time. The worm that had been eating at the heart of Keaja’s mother all this while finally arose and devoured her heart. She too could be heard to sound death warnings.

Then a curious and temporary solution was handed down from high places. It was said that if the lovers removed themselves from the community for a certain number of days, it would make allowance for public anger to die down. Then the marriage of the lovers would be considered.

So appalling was the drama to the community that on the day Keaja was released from his home and allowed to approach the home of Tselane, all the people withdrew to their own homes so as not to witness the fearful sight. Only Mma-Monosi, who had supervised the last details of the departure, stood openly watching the direction in which the young lovers left the village.

She saw them begin to ascend the hill not far from the home of Tselane. As darkness was approaching, she turned and walked back to her yard. To Mme-Tselane, who lay in a state of nervous collapse in her hut, Mma-Monosi made her last, sane pronouncement on the whole affair.

‘The young man is no fool,’ she said. ‘They have taken the direction of the hill. He knows that the hilltop is a superior position to any other. People are angry and someone might think of attacking them. An attacker will find it a difficult task as the young man will hurtle stones down on him before he ever gets near. Our child is quite safe with him.’

* * * * *

Then the story took a horrible and legendary turn. Tension built up towards the day the lovers were supposed to return to community life. They did not return. Days went by and they did not return. Eventually search parties were sent out to look for them, but they had totally disappeared. Not even their footmarks were visible on the bare rockfaces and tufts of grass on the hillside. At first the searchers returned and did not report having seen any abnormal phenomena, only a baffled surprise. Then Mma-Monosi’s precarious imaginative balance tipped over into chaos. She was seen walking grief-stricken towards the hill.

As she reached its base she stood still and the whole drama of the disappearance of the lovers was recreated before her eyes. She first heard loud groans of anguish that made her blood run cold. She saw that as soon as Tselane and Keaja set foot on the hill, the rocks parted and a gaping hole appeared. The lovers sank into its depths and the rocks closed over them. As she called, ‘Tselane! Keaja!’ their spirits arose and floated soundlessly with unseeing eyes to the top of the hill.

Mma-Monosi returned to the village and told a solemn and convincing story of all the phenomena she had seen. People had to be informed such phenomena existed and they all began seeing them too.

Then Mma-Tselane, maddened and distraught by the loss of her daughter, slowly made her way to the hill. With sorrowful eyes she watched the drama recreate itself before her. She returned home and died.

The hill from then onwards became an unpleasant embodiment of sinister forces which destroy life. It was no longer considered a safe dwelling place for the tribe. They packed up their belongings on the backs of their animals, destroyed the village and migrated to a safer area.

The deserted area remained unoccupied from then onwards — until 1875 when the Bamalete tribe settled there. Although strangers to the area, they saw the same phenomena, they heard the loud groans of anguish and saw the silent floating spirits of the lovers. The legend was kept alive from generation unto generation, and so the hill stands until this day, in the village of Otse in southern Botswana, as an eternal legend of love. Lentswe la Baratani, the Hill of the Lovers, it is called.