thing most worshipped in the country. This being the first legacy of the white settlers. This being what the natives had learned.
He had dismissed most of the natives in the days following the announcement. There remained only a few dozen. These natives watched as pell-mell the farms went up on the hills around them. Each new farmer was given three cows and five sheep and a burlap sack of seed with which to start operations. The soil, now rich with ash, was plowed and the seed dumped into the ground. The livestock corralled into the corners of the plots and the houses hammered together with the weathered squares of corrugated metal.
In all the effect was—not what they were used to, and not especially felicitous. The natives shook their heads. They could leave the farm and put their names down for their acre and their three cows. Others had done so. But they decided against it. They were hedging their bets. They were waiting for something more, and did not believe this was the end of the matter.
T HE OLD MAN returned six months later. Tom sits on the porch. It has been one month since the old man’s return and still Tom calls it the porch in his head, what was once referred to as the veranda. There have been many retractions in his life, the mostimportant taking place in his head. It is now spring but there are shadows from inside the house and Tom is sitting on the edge of a pool of darkness.
There is nothing cheering to see in his face. Tom has been neutered by age and disillusion. His body is still young—he can run and jump with the best of them, he can move quickly when he has to, having always been good at running, in multiple senses of the word—but his face is like an old man already dead. His world has shrunk down to a fraction of its original size and he has already grown used to it.
After the land reform announcement, Tom was alone. The land was, for the time being, safe. The farm was his and he could do with it as he wished. But this farm was different from the farm he had envisioned, the farm he had filled his days imagining. He was forced to accept the reduced state of affairs, the missing father and the missing land being one and the same, both having gone at the same time, under the same circumstances.
The missing father being in two parts: the simple physical absence and the more difficult absence of the idea. The image of the father. Which was now gone, which had crumbled in front of him. The second being the greater loss. Having lost so much, Tom was obliged to divest himself further. He dismissed most of the servants and farm hands; others left of their own accord. He did not think to ask where they were going. He sold one thing and then he began selling all of it. He took whatever was offered, not knowing how to bargain.
He sold the motorboats. The tractors and the plows. (Therewas a lot of machinery. It took a lot of machinery to maintain all that land. The storehouses containing piles of hardware and tools, the ossuary of the farm as it once was.) It was not hard. His attachment was to the land, not the apparatus it came with, and the valley was crawling with new farmers. The carpetbaggers bought the equipment in bulk and sold it at premium. Everything went except the fish farm, which continued to sit in a shed adjacent to the river, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin.
The other sheds went with the land. Tom did not know who owned them. The redistribution process had been fast and loose. It had seemed chaotic. Tom did not know if the result was what they wanted, if they have been satisfied by their gains. He did not even know who they were—communists, he heard, who did not believe in individual property. But then he heard that they were not communists after all but revolutionary capitalists. Nihilist rebels. None of these words meant anything to him.
Tom sat on the land that was still his. He had retained just enough natives to make the farm run. He had a little bit of money. But mostly he
He had dismissed most of the natives in the days following the announcement. There remained only a few dozen. These natives watched as pell-mell the farms went up on the hills around them. Each new farmer was given three cows and five sheep and a burlap sack of seed with which to start operations. The soil, now rich with ash, was plowed and the seed dumped into the ground. The livestock corralled into the corners of the plots and the houses hammered together with the weathered squares of corrugated metal.
In all the effect was—not what they were used to, and not especially felicitous. The natives shook their heads. They could leave the farm and put their names down for their acre and their three cows. Others had done so. But they decided against it. They were hedging their bets. They were waiting for something more, and did not believe this was the end of the matter.
T HE OLD MAN returned six months later. Tom sits on the porch. It has been one month since the old man’s return and still Tom calls it the porch in his head, what was once referred to as the veranda. There have been many retractions in his life, the mostimportant taking place in his head. It is now spring but there are shadows from inside the house and Tom is sitting on the edge of a pool of darkness.
There is nothing cheering to see in his face. Tom has been neutered by age and disillusion. His body is still young—he can run and jump with the best of them, he can move quickly when he has to, having always been good at running, in multiple senses of the word—but his face is like an old man already dead. His world has shrunk down to a fraction of its original size and he has already grown used to it.
After the land reform announcement, Tom was alone. The land was, for the time being, safe. The farm was his and he could do with it as he wished. But this farm was different from the farm he had envisioned, the farm he had filled his days imagining. He was forced to accept the reduced state of affairs, the missing father and the missing land being one and the same, both having gone at the same time, under the same circumstances.
The missing father being in two parts: the simple physical absence and the more difficult absence of the idea. The image of the father. Which was now gone, which had crumbled in front of him. The second being the greater loss. Having lost so much, Tom was obliged to divest himself further. He dismissed most of the servants and farm hands; others left of their own accord. He did not think to ask where they were going. He sold one thing and then he began selling all of it. He took whatever was offered, not knowing how to bargain.
He sold the motorboats. The tractors and the plows. (Therewas a lot of machinery. It took a lot of machinery to maintain all that land. The storehouses containing piles of hardware and tools, the ossuary of the farm as it once was.) It was not hard. His attachment was to the land, not the apparatus it came with, and the valley was crawling with new farmers. The carpetbaggers bought the equipment in bulk and sold it at premium. Everything went except the fish farm, which continued to sit in a shed adjacent to the river, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin.
The other sheds went with the land. Tom did not know who owned them. The redistribution process had been fast and loose. It had seemed chaotic. Tom did not know if the result was what they wanted, if they have been satisfied by their gains. He did not even know who they were—communists, he heard, who did not believe in individual property. But then he heard that they were not communists after all but revolutionary capitalists. Nihilist rebels. None of these words meant anything to him.
Tom sat on the land that was still his. He had retained just enough natives to make the farm run. He had a little bit of money. But mostly he
Similar Books
