The Heart of Redness: A Novel (16 page)

“Those birds used to come here only in summer,” says Qukezwa. “But now they stay here all year round.”

“You know a lot about birds and plants.”

“I live with them.”

Mist rises on the sea.

They are now walking among the broad-leafed wild strelitzia.

“These look like banana plants. I didn’t know bananas grew in the Eastern Cape.”

“It’s not really a banana tree. It is called ikhamanga. White people call it wild banana. But it bears only the banana flower, never the fruit. Birds enjoy its nectar and its seeds.”

The mist thickens.

Qukezwa has a distant look in her eyes.

“We stood here with the multitudes,” she says, her voice full of nostalgia. “Visions appeared in the water. Nongqawuse herself stood here. Across the river the valley was full of ikhamanga. There were reeds too. They are no longer there. Only ikhamanga remains. And a few aloes. Aloes used to cover the whole area. Mist often covers this whole ridge right up to the lagoon where we come from. It was like that too in the days of Nongqawuse. We stood here and saw the wonders. The whole ridge was covered with people who came to see the wonders. Many things have changed. The reeds are gone. What remains now is that bush over there where Nongqawuse and Nombanda first met the Strangers. The bush. Ityholo-lika-Nongqawuse.”

Camagu is seized by a bout of madness. He fights hard against the urge to hold this girl, tightly, and kiss her all over. It is different from the urge he once had: to hold and protect Xoliswa Ximiya. This woman does not need protecting. He does. He is breathing heavily as if he has just climbed a mountain, and his palms are sweating. Every part of his body has become a stranger to him. He convinces himself that this is temporary insanity: he is merely mesmerized by the romance of the place and the girl’s passion for the prophets.

Yet his heart is pumping faster than ever!

He must run away from this siren. Away from her burning contours. After only two strides he trips over a pile of stones and falls. She helps him up, and her touch exacerbates the madness. Wonderful heat is consuming his whole body. Like the fires of hell.

She adds a stone to the pile.

“It is a cairn,” she explains. “The amaXhosa call it
isivivane
. People from my Khoikhoi side said these were the graves of their prophet, Heitsi Eibib, the son of Tsiqwa. They were found at many crossroads. If you want the protection of the ancestors for a safe journey, you add a stone to the pile. Come on. Add a stone. Then you’ll have a safe journey to America.”

Camagu gingerly puts a stone on the cairn.

Qukezwa added another stone and sang a song in praise of Heitsi Eibib. Twin added a few twigs of aromatic buchu herbs. He gave another twig to Heitsi, who was wrapped in a blanket on his mother’s back. She bent down so the child could put the twig on the stones. Then they continued on their way. Even though the crossroads was near their destination, they had made it a habit never to pass Heitsi Eibib’s graves without performing the ritual.

The multitudes had already gathered at Mhlakaza’s homestead. They wanted to see more miracles. They were demanding the presence of their forefathers from the spirit world. But Nongqawuse told them that the people who came from the sea were invisible. Those pilgrims who were favored by her were sent back to their homes to fetch a head of cattle each before they could be introduced to the new people.

Since Twin and Qukezwa no longer had cattle to look after, having killed all of them, they spent almost all their time at Mhlakaza’s. They went to their homestead at Ngcizele only once a week to sweep the floors of their huts and the ground outside, so that when the day of the rising of the dead came, the headless Xikixa and the other ancestors before him would be welcomed to a clean homestead.

Twin and Qukezwa had become part of the prophets’ hangers-on who were fed from the big pots of meat and samp that were steaming
all day long. The daily feasting, the spirit of brotherhood and sister-hood that permeated the very air that they were breathing, the singing and dancing, the hope for the future, all made the multitudes forget about the troubles of the outside world and the lungsickness that tortured the Unbelievers. Many of those who gathered daily at the banks of the Gxarha River were like Twin and Qukezwa. They no longer had any cattle to worry about. Lungsickness was a distant nightmare.

Sometimes the new people came riding on the waves. As usual only Nongqawuse and Mhlakaza could see them. Or only those who had been given permission by the prophets were able to see shadows of the new people. Or at best silhouette images at the place where the sea met the sky.

In most cases, even the prophets themselves could not see the new people with their eyes, for they manifested themselves in the form of
imilozi
, the whistles that are the language of the spirits. Nongqawuse and Nombanda spoke with the new people in whistles. Then they translated their messages into the language of humans.

The fact that only Nongqawuse, Nombanda, and Mhlakaza could see or speak to the new people enhanced the prestige of the prophets. Many of those who were tempted not to believe were converted by this fact.

“The new people say that as long as there are some among you who refuse to kill their cattle, the dead will not arise,” announced Nongqawuse. “The new cattle that are free of disease will not come. As long as the amaGogotya—the Unbelievers—continue to unbelieve, the prophecies shall not be fulfilled.”

This caused a lot of anger among the people. A beautiful life awaited the amaXhosa nation. Yet there were traitors, the amaGogotya, who wanted to spoil everything for everyone. They were the enemies of the nation. Something had to be done. While Nongqawuse was leading Qukezwa and a group of visitors to the valley to listen to the lowing sounds of the new cattle in the aardvark holes and in the bush where the Strangers had first appeared, Twin gathered the men behind Mhlakaza’s solitary hut. The only topic on the agenda was the course of action that had to be taken against the Unbelievers.

“What choice do we have? Kill the amaGogotya! Destroy their crops! Kill their cattle! Burn their houses!” the men shouted.

Twin’s heart began to bleed for Twin-Twin. He had not spoken with his brother for three weeks, since the last time they had exchanged insults. Twin-Twin had walked all the way to Ngcizele to persuade his brother one more time to stop the foolishness of killing his cattle, and to stop believing in the dreams of a sex-starved girl. To his astonishment he found that Twin had already killed all his cattle. His homestead was buzzing with flies, and the stench of rotten meat assailed one a mile away.

“It is your wife,” Twin-Twin had screeched. “It is this terrible foreigner who made you do this stupid thing.”

“She is not a foreigner. She is the original owner of this land,” said Twin proudly.

“She is not an umXhosa woman. She is a prostitute.”

“You call my wife that again and you will regret that you were ever born.”

“Everyone knows that she opened her thighs for the British soldiers.”

“For your freedom. You ungrateful little man. Now go and never darken my homestead with your evil presence. I never want to see you again.”

That was the last time Twin had seen his brother. He had heard many stories about him. That he was riding around with Mjuza and Ned, in the company of no less a murderer than John Dalton. That they were denouncing the prophets and coercing people into defying the instructions of the Strangers.

“Can we trust Twin?” asked one man. “His twin brother is one of the staunchest Unbelievers. Will he not reveal our plans to him?”

Twin was angry at such impertinence. He stood up and addressed the man directly, pointing at him threateningly.

“Who are you, if I may ask? You only joined the Believers yesterday, long after my wife and I had been coming to the banks of the Gxarha River to commune with the new people through our humble prophets. I have on occasion even seen the new people with my own eyes. And you have the temerity to express doubts about me. Now let
me assure those who may be stupid enough to listen to you. I am just as angry with the Unbelievers as everyone here. In fact, I am angrier! My twin brother is not just a passive Unbeliever. He is riding around with John Dalton, causing havoc to the Believers in the countryside. And do you know who John Dalton is? He is the man who beheaded my father. He and his comrades cooked the head of my father in a cauldron. It is the return of this headless ancestor that I am waiting for here at this spot where the Gxarha River spews its sacred waters into the sea. Do you, foolish man, still doubt me?”

The men apologized profusely, and reprimanded their colleague for speaking out of turn. They said that indeed Twin had a lot to lose if the resurrection failed due to the selfishness of the Unbelievers. The man shook Twin’s hand. He had not meant any harm, he said. He suggested Twin’s name as the leader of the secret force that would destroy the cattle and crops of the Unbelievers. And so Twin became a leader by acclamation.

He was determined to show everyone that he meant business, by leading a faid against his own brother. And although he normally shared everything with Qukezwa, he kept this plot a secret. But people talk. Soon she got to know of the plan and confronted him.

“This is terrible, Father of Heitsi! The ancestors will not like this,” she warned.

“How can they not like it? I am doing this for them. So that they should be able to come back and join us. They won’t rise from the dead if we don’t kill all the cattle living. The white people will not be swept into the sea, but will continue to rule us.”

“But he is your brother, from the same womb, at the same time.”

“When did you become his defender? You know how he hates you.”

“You are only doing this to impress the men. I heard how at first they doubted you. You are not doing it for the dead. You are doing it for the living.”

For the first time Twin decided to go against the wishes of his wife. The life of the nation was at stake. His family would not be the first one to be at war over this matter. It was happening throughout the land. Not just between siblings. Even between husbands and wives. The
women of the amaXhosa were the main cultivators of the land. Many of them refused to go to the fields even when their husbands were the staunchest of Unbelievers. Women became the strongest supporters of the prophets. Many of them left their husbands and went to live with their parents. Women were the leaders of the cattle-killing movement. Twin was therefore surprised that Qukezwa, she who had taught him how to talk directly with the one who told his stories in heaven, should seem to be getting cold feet at this dire hour.

Twin-Twin was not making things any better for himself. It was clear to everyone that he had immersed himself deeply in the shameless company of headhunters such as John Dalton. His unbelieving had started as a matter of common sense. At first he had no truck with those who were Unbelievers on the basis of their being followers of the god of the white man—those who called themselves amaGqobhoka or Christians. He continued to be faithful to the god of his fathers. But lately he was being seen more often with the likes of Mjuza and Ned, men who were benefiting from the new opportunities offered by the rule of the white man. Believers or amaThamba like Twin, on the other hand, belonged to the ranks of the common people, whose only salvation from the yoke of conquest lay in the fulfillment of the prophecies.

There were two groups of amaGogotya: those who built their homesteads deep inland in case there was truth in the prophecies that Unbelievers would be swept into the sea together with the white people, and those who defiantly established their homes by the sea, openly challenging the validity of the prophecies. Twin-Twin was becoming so fervent in his unbelief that it was rumored he was considering moving his vast homestead from KwaFeni to Ngcizele, to be close to the sea. Twin never got to know whether there was any truth in that, because it was at the time when he was no longer speaking to his brother. But the rumor strengthened his resolve to burn down Twin-Twin’s homestead before he could become his neighbor.

The Unbelievers had powerful chiefs such as Sigidi and Nxito on their side. They worked closely with the government to root out the
cattle-killing movement. This was against the wishes of Sarhili, the king of all amaXhosa, who had issued orders that the prophets must be obeyed.

John Dalton was having the best of times. He was the most enthusiastic of government agents, working directly under the magistrates who had been placed by The Man Who Named Ten Rivers and his predecessors at the courts of all the senior chiefs of the amaXhosa. He rode in the countryside routing out those who were thought to be Believers. This sent most of the movement underground, and made Twin and his followers even more determined to wage a guerrilla war against the Unbelievers and their colonial masters.

Twin led his men to destroy the Unbelievers’ fields in the dead of the night. He started with his own brother’s fields. He opened Twin-Twin’s kraals and drove his cattle onto his fields and gardens to trample the crops. Then his men stabbed some of the prize bulls with spears. When Twin-Twin’s family woke up the next morning, they were consumed by an explosive rage. The Unbelievers had great difficulty in stopping Twin-Twin from riding to Mhlakaza’s homestead to show the traitors that he was not made of clay. It was at that very moment that the news arrived that Twin-Twin’s senior wife, the one who had once been identified as a witch by Prophet Mlanjeni many years before, had run away to join the Believers on the banks of the Gxarha River.