The Heart of Redness: A Novel (11 page)

“The developers are still going to cause more fights in this village!”

He is passionate about development. His wrath is directed at the Believers who are bent on opposing everything that is meant to improve the lives of the people of Qolorha.

“They want us to remain in our wildness!” says the elder. “To remain red all our lives! To stay in the darkness of redness!”

The Unbelievers are moving forward with the times. That is why they support the casino and the water-sports paradise that the developers want to build. The Unbelievers stand for civilization. To prove this point Bhonco has now turned away from beads and has decided to take out the suits that his daughter bought him many years ago from his trunk under the bed. From now on he will be seen only in suits. He is in the process of persuading his wife also to do away with the red ochre that women smear on their bodies and with which they also dye their isikhakha skirts. When the villagers talk of the redness of unenlightenment they are referring to the red ochre. But then even the isikhakha skirt itself represents backwardness. NoPetticoat must do away with this prided isiXhosa costume. But she is a stubborn woman. Although she is a strong Unbeliever like her husband, she is sold on the traditional fashions of the amaXhosa. But Bhonco is a suit man. He even cried when he saw his beautiful reflection in one of the big windows of Vulindlela Trading Store. In any case, these suits were lovingly bought by his daughter, and it makes her very happy when he wears them.

Camagu wonders why the Believers are so bent on opposing development that seems to be of benefit to everyone in the village.

“It is just madness,” shouts Bhonco. “Madness has seeped into their heads. And that John Dalton whose father was my age-mate, that John Dalton is misleading the nation. Now they want to enforce a ban on killing birds. Have you ever heard of such a thing? In the veld and in the forests, boys trap birds and roast them in ant-heap ovens. That is our way. We all grew up that way. Now when boys kill birds, are Dalton and his Believer cronies going to take them to jail? I’ll tell you one thing: it is all the fault of Nongqawuse!”

At night Camagu becomes the river again, and NomaRussia flows on him. Yet she remains elusive. So does the dream. It refuses to bearrested. But it keeps on coming back. Until the birds and the waves and the monkeys and the wind tell him it’s time to get out of bed. He defies them and sleeps until midday.

After a fulfilling lunch he goes back to Bhonco’s homestead. He is met by NoPetticoat, who is talking in whispers. He whispers back that he has come to see Xoliswa Ximiya.

“Xoliswa does not live here,” she whispers. “She has her own house at the school.”

“Thank you, mama. But why are we whispering?”

She tells him that there is a meeting in progress. The elders of the Unbelievers are sorting out a few problems before they engage in their rituals.

Under the umsintsi tree a motley group of men are sitting and drinking beer. Some are wearing traditional isiXhosa clothes while others are in various western gear ranging from blue denim overalls and gumboots to Bhonco’s crinkled suit and tie.

Bhonco sees Camagu and assumes that he is there to visit him. He beckons him to join the elders. Timidly Camagu approaches them, and apologizes for disturbing the old ones in their deliberations.

“Let the young man sit down. He will talk with Bhonco when we have finished upbraiding him,” says a grave elder.

Camagu has no choice but to sit down. He cannot tell them now that he has not come to see Bhonco, but his daughter. It will be considered rude and disrespectful if he answers back after receiving such firm instructions to sit down. Even though he has spent so many years in foreign lands, he remembers the culture of his people very well.

Bhonco, son of Ximiya, is being admonished by his peers.

“We do not complain if this son of Ximiya cries for beautiful things,” says the grave one. “But he must not betray us by refusing to join us in our grief for the folly of belief that racked our country and is felt even today. He is a carrier of the scars. They will live on his body forever. He has no first son to carry them when he dies, but that is another matter. The ancestors will decide about that. Maybe the scars will be passed to another family of Unbelievers. But that is not what I am talking about now. I am saying that this son of Ximiya must grieve. This descendant of the headless one must lament.”

Various elders make their speeches in the same vein. Bhonco is shamefaced. The words of his peers reach deep inside him. His response
is one long sharp wail. It is the howl of a mountain dog when the moon is full. Camagu suddenly feels a tinge of sadness.

In a slow rhythm the elders begin to dance. It is a painful dance. One can see the pain on their faces as they lift their limbs and stamp them on the ground. They are all wailing now, and mumbling things like people who talk in tongues. But they are not talking in tongues in the way that Christians do. They are going into a trance that takes them back to the past. To the world of the ancestors. Not the Otherworld where the ancestors live today. Not the world that lives parallel to our world. But to this world when it still belonged to them. When they were still people of flesh and blood like the people who walk the world today.

Like the abaThwa people—those who were disparagingly called the San by the Khoikhoi because to the Khoikhoi everyone who was a wanderer and didn’t have cattle was a San—the elders seem to induce death through their dance. When they are dead they visit the world of the ancestors. When the trance is over they rejoin the world of the living. Only the elders do not die to the Otherworld but to the world of the past.

Camagu is not only filled with deep sorrow, he is also filled with fear. He tries to steal away when the elders are dead in their trance. As he tiptoes past the pink rondavel he almost falls on NoPetticoat, who is busy washing a gigantic three-legged cast-iron pot.

“You don’t have to steal away like a thief in the night,” she says with a smile.

“I am scared. I have never seen anything like this before.”

“There is nothing to be afraid of. They are merely inducing sadness in their lives, so that they may have a greater appreciation of happiness.”

“I have never heard of this custom before among the amaXhosa.”

“It is not there. Even the Unbelievers of the days of Nongqawuse never had it. It was invented by the Unbelievers of today. When the sad times passed and the trials of the Middle Generations were over, it became necessary to create something that would make them appreciate this new happiness of the new age. What better way than to lament the folly of belief of the era of the child-prophetesses and the sufferings of the Middle Generations which were brought about by the same scourge of belief?”

Camagu no longer wants to steal away. He wants to stay and watch the whole ritual. NoPetticoat continues, “The revival of unbelief meant that Unbelievers must learn anew how to celebrate unbelief. Xoliswa’s father was one of those who were sent to the hinterland to borrow the dances and trances of the abaThwa that take one to the world of the ancestors.”

Under the umsintsi tree the elders present a wonderful spectacle of suffering. They are invoking grief by engaging in a memory ritual. In their trance they fleet back through the Middle Generations, and linger in the years when their forebears were hungry.

Hunger had seeped through the soil of the land of the amaXhosa. It also fouled the ill-gotten lands of the neighboring amaMfengu. Yet that part of kwaXhosa that had been conquered and settled by the children of Queen Victoria—they whose ears reflected the light of the sun—continued to eat.

The sons of the headless one were as diligent as their father used to be before he became stew in a British pot. The patriarch had taught them well about the art of working the soil and looking after animals. When the season was ripe, they cultivated the land. When it was time for hoeing, the women hoed the fields. The maize seemed to be promising. But before the corn was mature the disease attacked. Mercilessly. Once more the plants were left whimpering and blighted.

Lungsickness continued its rampage. It had arrived even at these new pastures. There was no escaping it. It picked and chose at random those cattle it was going to take with it.

At Twin’s homestead it displayed the height of arrogance by attacking his prize horse, Gxagxa. No one had heard of lungsickness attacking horses before. But now the beautiful brown-and-white horse was becoming a bag of bones in front of his eyes.

Twin did not sleep. He kept vigil at Gxagxa’s stable. Qukezwa brought him sour milk and
umphokoqo
porridge. But he could not eat. As long as Gxagxa could not eat he found it impossible to eat. Qukezwa tried a new strategy and brought him the fermented sorghum soft-porridge known as
ingodi
, and then the fermented maize soft-porridge
called
amarhewu
. She knew that these were her husband’s favorite drinks, which he found refreshing even after the hardest day’s work. But Twin did not touch them. He just sat there and watched Gxagxa go through the stages that he knew so well: constipation, then diarrhea, then weight loss. The poor horse spent days gasping for air, its tongue hanging out. Then it died.

Yet Twin continued his vigil. He was waning away. Qukezwa feared that he was going to follow Gxagxa to the Otherworld. She pleaded. She cajoled. She threatened. Twin continued his vigil over a hide that covered only a pile of bones. Even when the flies and the worms came, he sat motionless and watched them feast.

Qukezwa never really liked Twin-Twin, because he never really liked her. But after praying to the one who told his stories in heaven, she swallowed her pride and went to KwaFeni to appeal for Twin-Twin’s assistance. Twin-Twin put his kaross on his shoulder and rode to Ngcizele to see what was ailing his brother.

“It is dead, child of my mother! That horse is dead!” shouted Twin-Twin, greatly exercised by his brother’s weakness. Whoever heard of a grown umXhosa man being affected like this by the death of a mere animal. Yes, he himself had felt the pain when his favorite ox died. One or two drops of tears did find their way down his cheeks. But this? Ridiculous! It showed clearly that his brother was a milksop.

For the first time in almost two weeks Twin opened his lips. He uttered something about Heitsi Eibib.

“He was a prophet, the son of Tsiqwa who died for the Khoikhoi people,” Qukezwa explained to Twin-Twin.

“What has he got to do with us? This Heitsi Eibib is not one of us for my brother to be delirious about him. It is you, woman, who have put these strange ideas in his head. Now my brother dreams of foreign prophets that have nothing to do with the amaXhosa people. Is it your ubuthi—your witchcraft—that has made him become like this?”

“Would I have called you if I had made him be like this?”

Life seemed to return to Twin’s eyes. He smiled and looked at his brother.

“In the same way that Heitsi Eibib saved the Khoikhoi, we need a prophet who will save the amaXhosa,” he said.

“We have had our prophets. The prophets of the amaXhosa, not of the Khoikhoi or the abaThwa. We had Ntsikana and we had Nxele. What more do you want?” asked Twin-Twin. He was becoming impatient with this foolish talk.

“Perhaps there is something in this Nongqawuse thing,” said Twin. “Perhaps she is the new prophet that will save us.”

“She is just a foolish girl,” argued Twin-Twin.

“Let us give her a chance, child of my mother. There might be something in her prophecies about the Strangers. She says the Strangers told her that all the animals and crops that we have today are contaminated. And indeed we see them dying every day. Here I have lost Gxagxa. The same Gxagxa who led us to these new pastures. Gxagxa is gone because of the contamination that blankets the land. Even in the new pastures we cannot escape the contamination. Perhaps we shall escape it if we heed Nongqawuse’s words and kill all our animals.”

“Don’t you see, all the words she utters are really Mhlakaza’s words? She is Mhlakaza’s medium. The same Mhlakaza who was spreading lies, telling us that we must follow the god of the white man. The very white man who killed the son of his own god!”

But Twin was no longer listening. He was humming the song that people sang after Nongqawuse had made her prophecies about the new people who would come from the dead with new animals after all the contaminated ones had been killed.

“Now, I want you to listen very carefully, Twin,” said Twin-Twin, trying very hard to muster as much patience as was possible. “I can see you are taking a dangerous path. We have our own god. And he has no son either. Unlike the god of the white man or of your wife’s people.”

Twin replied defensively, “Unlike the white people, the Khoikhoi did not kill the son of their god.”

“It does not matter. What I am saying is, stick to your own god and his true prophets. Leave other people’s gods, including those gods’ sons, daughters, or any other members of their families.”

In the days that followed, Twin seemed to have found peace and calmness at last. He embraced the stories that were beginning to spread that
Mhlakaza had actually visited the land of the dead—the Otherworld where the ancestors lived—and had been caressed by the shadow of King Hintsa. Even though almost twenty years had passed since King Hintsa had been brutally murdered in 1835 by Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban, the amaXhosa people still remembered him with great love. They had not forgotten how D’Urban had invited the king to a meeting, promising him that he would be safe, only to cut off his ears as souvenirs and ship his head to Britain. There must be something in Nongqawuse’s prophecies if Mhlakaza could be caressed by the shadow of the beloved king.

Twin was attracted not only by the good news that new cattle would come with the new people from the Otherworld. Nongqawuse had also pronounced that if the people killed all their cattle and set all their granaries alight, the spirits would rise from the dead and drive all the white people into the sea. Who would not want to see the world as it was before the cursed white conquerors—who were capable of killing even the son of their own god—had been cast by the waves onto the lands of the amaXhosa?