Stolen Life (Beauty in the Stolen 2)

“Shall we head back now?” Banga asks, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.

“I want to see the crops.”

His face drops, but he says nothing as he drives us down to the banks of the river.

I haven’t felt this alive in a long time. Town living has chipped away my joie de vivre a little more with every passing day. Because it happened so gradually over so many years, I haven’t noticed how much of myself I’d lost until now. Working in a bank has never made my heart beat faster. The casino and its dazzling lights, one of Rustenburg’s biggest nearby attractions, never held the draw for me it held for some people. What makes me happy is the carefree laughter of women stringing beads and dying fabric. It’s the grazing cows in the tall grass on the hill and the steady flow of the river at the bottom.

The women working in the crops straighten when we park. They watch our approach with curious gazes. I start at the top, walking through rows of carrots and leeks and ending at the cabbages. A woman dressed in a yellow dress with a black batik design and matching turban greets me.

“Is this Ian’s woman?” the woman asks Shona in Tswana.

Before Shona can reply, I say in Tswana, “Ian brought me here, but I’m my own woman.”

Like the nurse, the woman’s eyes flare. “I didn’t expect to see you around here.”

“What?” I make a shocked face. “You expected me to hang around the lodge all day?”

She looks me up and down. “The lodge isn’t the worst place to be.”

No, it’s not. It’s a great place, like everywhere on the farm. I extend a hand, gripping my elbow to show respect. “I’m Cas.”

She accepts the handshake, gripping her elbow in turn. “I’m Keeya.”

I motion at the rows of leafy greens. “What are you planting?”

She shouts at the women who are still looking at me like I’m an alien to go back to work before giving me her attention again. “Whatever is in season.” She sighs. “But we’re not having much luck with the crop this year.”

I crouch down to inspect the cabbage. The heads are young, but they’ve already split.

Her shadow falls over me. “We’re not overwatering, and we tested the river water. There’s no diseases in the water.”

“When did you plant?” I ask.

“Late November.”

Harvest isn’t until early autumn—March. I pick up a handful of soil and let it run through my fingers. It’s sandy and red like the Kalahari soil, but the Conquistador cabbage variety that’s popular in the informal markets due to the bigger heads doesn’t mind sandy soil too much. The soil isn’t cracked from dryness or muddy from overwatering. The Zambezi flows over basalt rock. The shores should be alkaline. Cabbage prefers neutral soil conditions, but the weeds growing between the crops tell me the soil may be acidic.

I look up at Keeya, squinting against the sun. “When did you fertilize?”

“Late in the season.”

That could explain why the soil is acidic, if it is indeed the case, and could be why the cabbage is splitting.

I glance toward the higher end of the field farther away from the trees. Over there, the cabbage heads are still intact. “You could still save those ones.”

She gives me a startled look. “How would you know this?”

Shona grins. “She grew up on a farm.”

Keeya’s once-over is mistrustful. “What kind of farm?”

“Cattle, maize, and rotating crop vegetables,” I say.

“Don’t you have fancy tests and soil analysis on those big farms?” she asks. “The young generation can’t farm without a computer program running everything from irrigation to fertilization these days.”

I smile at the generalization. She’s obviously not a fan of technology, so I don’t point out that she can buy a soil test kit at any co-op that sells seeds. “That’s not how my father taught me.” Straightening, I dust my hands on my thighs. “You have chickens, right?”

“We already make compost from the manure.”

“What about the eggshells?”

“We mix it with bone meal to make fertilizer, but we only use it for the maize.”

“Try mixing some into the soil here next to the river. Manure compost makes the soil acidic, and so do the roots of the trees on the shore. The calcium in the bonemeal and eggshells should alkalize it.”

It’s a simple answer, quite uncomplicated, but my dad taught me the most effective solutions are often the simplest ones.

She scoffs.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Shona says. Addressing me, she adds, “Keeya is just a hardheaded old cow who doesn’t like to be wrong. She always knows better than everyone.”

Keeya shoots daggers at Shona but doesn’t respond to the insult. I guess Shona is higher up in the hierarchy, which wins her a certain amount of respect, no matter how grudgingly it’s given.

As we walk toward the river to inspect the vegetables, Banga plops down onto a rock close to the men who watch the banks for hippos while the women work. We check for insects and signs of black rot, and chat for another while about their rotation practices, after which Keeya says it’s time for the women to take a lunchbreak.