adminThe other Sunday Tilda Chiridzamimba of Radio Zimbabwe was hosting a phone-in programme on bosses who fall on love with their juniors at work. One of the housewives who responded said she was in love with their gardener because her husband was too busy to satisfy her sexual needs.
The articulate housewife who spoke good English in the programme that was running in the mother tongue said she was very happy with the extra services their gardener was giving her.
“I did this when I saw that the man I married was neglecting me,” said the woman.
“He is away from home most of the time attending to his business. The new set up is working very well indeed. I’ve nothing to complain about.”
The experience of this young mother brought to mind the case of Mary Turner. She was a victim of sex across the racial divide which some people at Ngezi in Mashonaland West didn’t approve of.
Mary herself was not among the first people to settle at Ngezi, but her father and mother were among them. She grew up in this farming community and when her parents died she went to work in town.
Doris Lessing tells us that Mary didn’t want to marry early because she had seen her father bashing her mother. However, when she turned 30 people started saying unsavoury things about her status. Her marriage to Dick was not a happy one. The thread running through the Grass is Singing chronicles the pain Mary endured when she sought comfort from their cook.
The men who brought sex across colour to Zimbabwe enjoyed the fruits if their enterprise, but they were loath to see men of colour doing the same.
Their women would find relief in men of colour when their men expended all their energies in amassing wealth on farms and on mines. The women who found themselves in this situation became targets of ostracism. Doris Lessing presents a depressing picture showing how Mary Turner went for two years without receiving people of her colour at their home. Dick would work on their farm from the crack of dawn with his dedicated employees until it was dark. He would take his afternoon meals in the fields.
Mary, in her loneliness, turned to Moses for comfort in more ways than one. the cook obliged her willingly out of pity for this woman who found herself lost to the world. The Grass is Singing portrays the double standards which settlers were applying on the question of sex across the line of colour with clinical precision.
Experience shows that this farming outpost should hold a special place in the hearts of serious lovers in Zimbabwe. Ngezi was in the news soon after independence in 1980 when one of them, Chibhoyi, paid the customary three cows for seduction.
The multitude that filled the football stadium in Norton witnessed local councillors putting the white farmer through his paces for taking the wife of his worker. There were light moments were Chibhoyi and his mistress took their seats beside each other. The pair of shoes and the shirt that Chibhoyi had been wearing on the day were produced as exhibits.
Chibhoyi had fathered many children of colour in the neighbourhood of Ngezi. Mary Turner had hoped to lead a peaceful life on the farm when she married Dick. She shouldn’t have allowed her imagination to run riot. Doris Lessing has a message for people in Zimbabwe who receive offer letters: Life on farms is not a bed of roses. Even on Christmas the cow has to be milked and pigs have to be fed.
The dust that covered her pair of shoes disqualified her. The hostel where she used to stay before she went to the farm reminded Mary that they didn’t take in married women. She didn’t have money to pay her hotel bills. And her old friends were less than forthcoming. Somerset-Maugham would have described Mary as having “gone native” in his offending style of writing which failed to retain him his readers in the global village. Mary Turner and Dick were forced to sell their farm due to circumstances that were beyond their control. They were supposed to manage the same farm.
Before they went on holiday, Dick showed the manager what to do on the farm. When the young man went to drink cold water at the main house, he found Moses helping Mary to dress. The scandal rocked Ngezi at its foundation. Doris Lessing makes the mistakes which is common among Caucasian artists, including Shakespeare himself. There is no evidence showing that jealousy is a weakness among people of colour. They can marry more than one wife and aunt can arrange for the woman to give her barren husband children through a sibling in secret. Moses is an astute young man who doesn’t tolerate nonsense. He works hard and is honest to his employers. Mary keeps him on because Dick says she can’t find another dependable cook.
Though other people treat her as an untouchable, Mary is a practical woman who finds practical solutions to practical affairs of the heart.
Doris Lessing leaves the reader questioning the hand that kills Mary Turner.
Online Reporter