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“I have no blessing,” he said truthfully. “My words have dried up.”
Father Michael sighed, lighting a single candle. “Then why are you here?”
The old man looked up. His eyes were the colour of wet slate. “Because Hymn 63 has left my head.” sotho hymn 63
Just then, the heavy wooden door of the church scraped open. The wind threw a figure inside—a young woman, wrapped in a faded orange blanket, a baby strapped to her back. It was Mamello, the potter’s daughter. Her face was streaked not with rain, but with tears.
Mofokeng looked at the baby. The child’s lips were dry, his breathing a shallow flutter. The old man knew he had no power to heal. He was not a pastor or a sangoma. He was just a bricklayer who remembered songs. But his hands reached out anyway. “I have no blessing,” he said truthfully
The old priest, Father Michael, shuffled out from the sacristy, his cassock frayed at the hem. “Ntate Mofokeng,” he said gently, using the Sesotho honorific. “The generator died an hour ago. The confirmation class is cancelled. Go home. The wind is cruel tonight.”
And in that cough, Mofokeng heard something. Not a melody. A rhythm. The rhythm of his mother’s grinding stone. The rhythm of his own feet walking to the mines. The rhythm of a coffin lowered into red soil. His eyes were the colour of wet slate
Mamello lowered her head. The baby stopped crying.
