Hunger Eats a Man (3 page)

You are about to finish when Zuma, the induna, shouts, “Dinner is over!”

You leave the plastic bag, which has the last of your food. You go to work only half content, complaining that Zuma should have let you finish your meal. But unfortunately Zuma does not permit anything he thinks would waste
umlungu's
money, as he keeps reminding all of you.

Zuma is the best overseer any farmer can hope for. He is loved by his employers and despised by his fellow workers. He is ugly inside and out. One of the few people you know who is endowed with complete darkness. Nobody ever speaks back to him. He beats people who dodge work. Then he reports them to the farmer, who will cut the person's wages. He hurls a potato at anyone who leaves it unpicked in their line. But he is most feared for his witchcrafting abilities. If you quarrel with him, you may lose your life in a mysterious manner. He watches and watches you for all the long hours that feel like days before the end of the shift strikes at five. “
Ishayile!
” Zuma announces.

You are fascinated by people's screams of celebration: “
Hhiyo!
It's it.”

Your days at the farm are always tough. Not only is the work impossibly difficult, but natural forces also play their role in making your lives miserable. It is summer when you are at the farm. If it is not raining, it will be hot. You always suffer. But the days when it rains are always worse. The rain finds you in the fields and Zuma does not call off work until the word comes from Mbaqa or Sisusiyaduma (The-Stomach-is-Rumbling) that you should stop work and come to hide in the shed. The word always comes too late, when the rain is about to stop. Then you have to continue working in your miserable condition.

Today you are so drenched that your ticket is almost damaged. When you are ticketing, a white boy of sixteen looks at your ticket and you, “You see your ticket is like you?” This young man is Mbaqa's son. When he has said this to you he takes some time looking at your ticket, considering whether to sign it or not. He is known for refusing to sign those tickets that do not appeal to him. That means a person may have toiled in the farm the whole day for nothing. Others tease those people by saying that they worked the whole day for unpeeled potatoes, which are provided for lunch instead of sugar.

You are lucky; the young white boy signs your ticket. But you cannot help crying as you watch this boy: happy, dry and white! You have been working like an animal for him and his father, but instead
of feeling sorry that you are drenched to the bone, he decides to mock you, and even contemplates punishing you. On the way home your fellow workers congratulate you that he signed your ticket, but you are crying. You keep looking at yourself and the ticket that is, indeed, as wet as you are.

So it is that you vow never to work for the white farmer again. The physical and emotional abuse you suffer is beyond words. You feel that just being in this place is abuse enough for you.

But it is at the end of your working period that the final blow is struck. It happens like this. At the end of each day the tractor transports you back to the offices for ticketing, when they log your hours of work. The three of you – you, your brother and Thami – earn eight cents a day while Tila earns seven cents. In fact, what happens is that you all ticketed seven cents the first day. But the following day Sisusiyaduma gives you a one-cent increase, changing the seven of the previous day to eight.

Trouble comes when you are supposed to get paid. It is a week before the end of the month when Mbaqa summons you to the shed even before you go to work. He tells you that the police are on their way to arrest you because you have fraudulently tampered with your tickets, offering yourselves more than you deserve. The thought of being in the police van is very scary to you, not to mention spending a night in jail. You are not alone in this feeling because, as the police arrive, all four of you are begging Mbaqa not to send you to jail. Mbaqa is now blood red with anger, telling all who can hear that he has nothing to talk to you about. You are criminals and in his book criminals need to be put away from society.

By this time Sisusiyaduma is pacing up and down, denying vehemently that he has increased your pay, but still begging Mbaqa not to dispatch you to jail. You believe these two are playing tricks on you. Why did Mbaqa not notice earlier that your payment has been increased? He has ticketed you himself many times before.

After pleading and begging, something disturbing happens. Mbaqa
agrees to give you your money, without removing the extra one cent a day. Instead of having you arrested, he offers to pay you half of what you have worked for, or what you think you have worked for.

You are so grateful not to be arrested that you take the money. It is then that you realise the paradox of your lives. How can you be grateful when you have been toiling in the harshest of conditions for little money, and yet that little is cheated from you into even less?

Some people will think your story is not worth telling when all this mad exploitation is over. But you know your story is worthwhile. Without your story, your country will have no history. Or its history will be partial and untrue, as it has been.

On the Wednesday of Priest's visit, Bongani Hadebe leaves Bambanani High School – his school, as many people refer to it – tired and angry. He is short in height and has a big, protruding stomach that many people attribute to the large quantities of beer and brandy he gulps every day. He is very light in complexion and is known for his penchant for costly, beautiful clothes, such as Brentwood trousers, of which he has twenty pairs. He comes from a rich family, his father having once owned a number of stores and buses called Phuzushukela (Drink-Sugar), after his nickname. Wealth allowed Phuzushukela's son to become hooked on wearing costly clothes at a young age. Not only did he have all the kinds of clothes he wanted, he was also the only student to drive to school, when even some of the teachers didn't have cars. Students joked that Bongani could change cars while they could not even change shoes.

But Bongani is also known for his lack of intelligence and the fact that he reached his present position by buying his diploma certificate. Only God knows how he got his university degree.

Bongani climbs into his bottle-green Audi A6 and drives slowly out of the gates, absently saluting Mr Ndlovu, the security guard. He turns to his right when he joins Giants Castle Road, and Ndlovu notices his boss is not going home. Bongani wants to take time to clear his mind because he is worried by Priest's visit. More than that,
he is mad at his wife, Nomsa, because she does not want him to be a man. Last night he fought and lost what he thought was his last battle and now he feels like screaming.

When he reaches the bridge at Ncibidwane, his ill mind urges him to let the car drive straight into the river, but “Not yet” says another part of him. He continues on, past Ncibidwane Clinic and the taxi rank and through MaHlutshini Village. He relishes the sight of the gorgeous Drakensberg mountains and feels some consolation in his heart. The big, dark rocks seem as if they might open up and allow him to meet the two beautiful characters of the fairy tale, Demane and Demazane.

He parks his car when he is about two kilometres from Giant's Castle and climbs the hill on foot. He knows the area now belongs to KZN Wildlife, but he decides that no one will arrest him since it is daytime and he has no dogs or hunting tools. As he walks, Bongani comes across a family of five baboons. “Even the ugliest animals have children and I don't!” he laments. As if they hear him, the baboons laugh and go on, seemingly heading for a small area called Place of Power.

Before Bongani is a big, dark forest. He is tempted to go back to the car, but looking down, he notices how his trousers and shoes are covered in dirt. That dirt, and some greater force, are pushing or pulling him towards the forest. This is where the bones of his great ancestor, Langalibalele, lie. It fascinates him that some people are so sacred that rather than being buried in graves dug for them, big rocks open up to take their dead bodies into themselves.

Just now he remembers a day two years before when all the Hadebe males gathered for the ritual of appointing the new chief. How much he had hoped and prayed that the ancestors would choose him! Perhaps if they had been living people he might have been able to influence them by speaking the most convincing language he knew – money. But dead people do things their own way. He had not liked that thin bastard Fana before that day, but his hatred towards him
multiplied considerably when Fana turned out to be the chosen one. If he had not seen for himself the corn before everybody closed theirs in their hands, he would have said there was something sinister about the appointment. But each person held the corn for five minutes in front of the spectators and, when they opened their hands, Fana's was already sprouting.

“But why would the ancestors choose someone so thin instead of me? What do they see in someone who farts by the bone?” he demanded angrily when he was coming from the meeting. Now he forces this thought out of his mind.

Bongani feels tears form in his eyes as he contemplates his surrounds. This is the place where the great African who fought with the colonialists rests. It angers him to think that it was another African chief who finally conquered his great ancestor on behalf of the whites. “I hate Chunus!” he tells himself.

Again, he thinks about his warrior ancestor, and this time he feels ashamed of himself. Langalibalele was a brave man and he, his great-grandchild, is a coward! At thirty-seven he has no child of his own. Not because he cannot have them, but because his wife does not want to have children because, as she says, she is not a slave to bear children. Compounding his sorrow is his inability to let his wife know that he cannot be happy without having children. How can he be happy if even the baboons laugh at him?

He has seated himself on a rock now. At times he cannot stop the tears from dripping down his face as he meditates on his marriage. Why doesn't he leave her? The thought of living without Nomsa is as hurtful to Bongani as not having children. It is hard to think of replacing her with someone else. That is out of the question. Impossible. He just cannot live without his wife. But why doesn't she understand? Why doesn't she understand that he needs to be a man? He needs to leave his name on earth when he dies.

Bongani is gripped by a sudden fear. He feels his scalp tingle as he sees a tall, strongly built man standing just in front of him. He seems
to be heavy with contempt, and this frightens Bongani even more. The man then speaks in a piercing voice and Bongani feels as if the whole world is supposed to hear it: “I am disappointed in you!”

The words enter through Bongani's ears and he thinks he may never be able to hear again. But he does, and wishes he has not.

“We left you to look after our homestead and you destroy it? Coward! How can you let a woman rule our homestead? Hhe? Don't you see that you will kill our homestead if you let that woman of yours lead you astray? Have you ever heard of a Hlubi whose wife hauls him around by the nose?”

The anger in the man seems to be the cause of the cold air that Bongani feels and breathes. He feels so cold that he thinks he may freeze to death.

“I say,” the man continues, “if you are incapable of running our household, I will kill you!” At these last words the man plunges his spear into the ground and it comes out red with blood. “A man is a man thanks to his children!” the man says, as if in conclusion, and disappears from Bongani's view.

Bongani stands up and turns around twice. He sees there is nothing around him, but it feels as if something dangerous is looking at him. He jumps and cries, “Oh! My mother!” when he hears the baboons laughing not very far from him. He runs down to his car and the baboons laugh louder now, their voices enhanced by the mountains, which also sound as if they are laughing at him. Bongani locks himself in the car and tries many times to start it without success. He is trembling and trying to get that vision out of his mind. Was he dreaming up there or was what he saw a visitation? What he knows for sure is that, either way, he has seen a man who is certainly his ancestor. The message is that his ancestor wants him to give birth to many Hlubi boys who will also give birth to yet more Hlubi boys when they grow up.

Realising his ancestor's command is the same as his own wish, Bongani is happy. Only now is he able to start his car, reverse it
and turn back home. He drives a little faster when he looks at his wristwatch and sees that he has spent more time in the mountains than he thought he would. But now he has more courage to continue with the struggle for his manly right, knowing that his ancestors support him. He needs children and he is going to have them. No wife of his – yes, of
his
– will deny him the privilege of having children. Never!

All these years he has been trying to reason with his wife that they should at least have two children, a boy and a girl, if possible. He cannot forget that every time he has tried to speak to her about this, she asks him whether he married her because he loves her or because he wants to procreate. Now that she has deprived him for so long, he wants to have ten children: seven boys and three girls. Yes. He wants ten children, at least ten children. His great ancestor will be pleased with him when he has fathered so many Hlubi boys who will continue the Hlubi line. He can see in his mind's eye a number of cute, healthy boys who precede each other by only a year. Yes. Because Nomsa has deprived him of the joys of fatherhood for so long, she is now going to bear him a child every other year. The good thing is that he is working and earning a lot of money through his other position in the Bambudonga (Catch-the-Wall) Regional Council. What is the use of having a lot of money if you do not have children to spend it on?

It is half past six now as Bongani arrives home. He parks his car in his garage and notices that the 4x4, as they refer to Nomsa's car, is parked outside its garage. He takes some time, admiring his huge and beautiful double-storey house. Who else but him in Gxumani has a house with stairs?

The place name, Gxumani, is the diligent work of the Rainbow Nation. It refers to what used to be two mutually exclusive areas. The one is Canaan, formerly a suburb designated as Whites Only during the years of Separate Development. Now it has been usurped by rich blacks like himself, while many whites have left to live in the other, even more expensive, parts of town where blacks cannot yet afford to
buy. Ndlalidlindoda began as an informal settlement, but now many people have built houses as big as eight rooms and more, while others prefer to emulate the structure of their rural homelands by building up to three houses, some of which are rondavels and others called “kneel-and-pray”. But none can compare with the houses in Canaan, and certainly none are as beautiful as his. So the best thing to say is that there is no house in Canaan as costly as his, thanks to his fine job as a principal and finer one as chancellor in the Bambudonga Regional Council. This makes him proud.

Now no one goes to Gxumani without noticing or hearing of Bongani Hadebe, the rich man. His home has become a landmark in Canaan, which people use to direct their relatives. “Tell the driver that you will alight at The Stairs!” people will tell others, to Bongani's delight. “At The Stairs!” those who take the taxis in his street say if they want to get off. All this makes Bongani happy, but it is always spoiled by the fact that he does not have children. He feels that not having children reduces him to the level of the common people. These poor people do not have a beautiful house and a lot of money like him, but he also does not have children like them. It feels as if what they have is stronger and more valuable than what he has.

“My uncle is a policeman!” one of his friends used to boast when they were growing up, and Bongani always beat him by saying, “My uncle is a chief!” Now he can only say, “I have a double-storey,” and someone can reply, “I have five kids!” But all this is going to change. He can't help feeling grateful as he looks at his spacious home and sees many children playing and fighting in it. He can see himself teaching his boys to play ball and to ride bicycles. He feels as if he is a new person as he enters through the front door, until he remembers that Nomsa will be mad at him for not coming back from work on time. He suffers a little pang of fear as he notices that his wife is not only cleaning the house, but she is sweating as she cleans.