Ways of Dying (13 page)

The stories of the past are painful. But when Toloki and Noria talk about them, they laugh. Laughter is known to heal even the deepest of wounds. Noria's laughter has the power to heal troubled souls. This afternoon, as the two of them sit in front of the shanty, exhausted from building last night's creation, and refreshing themselves with stories of the past and soured porridge, Toloki lavishly bathes his soul in her laughter.

‘Well, Noria, I think I must go back to my headquarters now. My clients must be looking for me.'

‘How do they usually find you, Toloki?'

‘Oh, at other funerals. Those who know where I live usually leave a message in my trolley.'

‘Toloki, you have helped me so much. I really don't know how to thank you enough.'

‘Your laughter is enough thanks for me, Noria.'

‘No, Toloki, it is not thanks enough. It would mean that we
have not grown from the days when I gave pleasure, and was paid with favours. Remember, I am going to pay you back.'

‘I understand why it is important for you to pay me back, Noria. I do not object.'

‘Am I going to see you again, Toloki?'

‘For surely you will, Noria. I'll visit you now and then, if you don't mind, that is.'

‘Of course not, I would like to see you again, silly.'

They walk together to the taxi rank in the middle of the settlement. As usual, Toloki is the centre of attraction. Heads peer inquisitively from the small doors of shanties. Passers-by gawk at them.

‘Why do you prefer to use taxis? Trains are cheaper.'

‘Indeed they are cheaper. But these days there is a lot of death in the trains.'

Noria laughs. She agrees that people die everyday in the trains, but jokingly asks if Toloki is afraid to die, even though his daily work involves death. Toloki returns the laughter, and says that it is true that death is his constant companion, but where one can avoid one's own death, one must do so. He has a mission in the world, that of mourning for the dead. It is imperative that he does his utmost to stay alive, so that he can fulfil his sacred trust, and mourn for the dead.

‘Fortunately my mourning for the dead makes it possible for me to avoid death by using alternative transport.'

‘It is a pity that the people who die every day in the trains die because they want to earn a living for their children. They have no means of using alternative transport. Thank God some have survived, and live to tell the story.'

She tells him the story of one of the residents of the settlement who escaped death by a hair's breadth only last week. He was waiting at the station when a group of men believed to be migrants from the hostels got off the train. As usual they were armed with sticks, and spears, and battleaxes, and homemade
guns. He tried to board the train, but some of the men pulled him down on to the platform by his jacket. They demanded to know what ethnic group he belonged to. He told them, and it happened to be the same clan the men belonged to. They said that if he was a member of their ethnic group, then why was he not with them? Another one shouted, ‘This dog is lying! He does not belong to our people. He is of the southern people who are our enemies!'

A man wielding a knife rushed towards this resident of the settlement, and was about to stab him. But the resident escaped and ran along the platform shouting for help. He ran towards a group of security guards, whom he thought would come to his rescue. To his amazement, the security guards turned on their heels and fled. The resident jumped onto the railway line and hid under a train. He clung for dear life to the axles with both hands and feet, suspending his body between the railway sleepers and the bottom of the train floor.

The migrants jumped onto the railway line to look for him. They started shoving spears and pangas underneath the train. Fortunately he was protected by the train wheels, and the weapons could not reach him.

After a while the migrants left, and the train driver came to his rescue. He told the terrified man to get into the driver's cabin, as some of the migrants were still milling about on the platform. The driver then drove the train to another station, where the resident realised for the first time that he had been stabbed in the eye.

‘He is one-eyed now, but at least he is still alive.'

‘He was fortunate that the white man who drove the train saved him. Other people are not that fortunate.'

Toloki tells her of another train incident, which also happened last week, where the victim was not as fortunate as this resident. A young man and his wife were in the train. She was holding their one-day-old baby. They had come from the
hospital where the wife had just given birth the previous night. Three gangsters walked into the carriage and demanded that the woman give her baby to her husband and follow them. These were not migrants from hostels this time, but the very youths who live with us in the townships and in the settlements. The children we gave birth to, who have now turned against the community, and have established careers of rape and robbery.

The couple begged and pleaded. They explained that the woman had just given birth, and the baby was only a few hours old. But the gangsters showed no mercy. They insisted that the woman come with them. And she did. Not a single one of the other passengers lifted a finger to help. The next day, she was found dead in the veld. The gangsters had taken turns raping her, and had then slit her throat. Toloki knew her story because he had mourned at her funeral.

Toloki and Noria walk quietly until they reach the taxi rank. Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears.

‘Mothers lose their babies, Toloki, and babies lose their mothers.'

‘Death lives with us everyday. Indeed our ways of dying are our ways of living. Or should I say our ways of living are our ways of dying?'

‘It works both ways. Good-bye, Toloki.'

‘Good-bye, Noria.'

‘Just one more thing: please take a bath. Just because your profession involves death, it doesn't mean that you need to smell like a dead rat.'

Toloki laughs good-naturedly, and promises that before he visits her again, he will take a shower at the beach. He boards the taxi with happy thoughts, and waves to Noria as it drives away.

Toloki wakes up early in the morning, and goes to the beach. He hopes that the gawpers will not have arrived yet, since beaches normally get crowded in the afternoons on Saturdays. He is whistling to himself, and from time to time he breaks into a jig of exhilaration. A gust of wind blows his topper away. He runs after it, performing a nifty cart-wheel that is actualised only in his imagination. He laughs aloud, until tears stream down his cheeks.

The dockworkers, the sailors and their prostitutes think that he has finally snapped. They have never seen him in this effervescent mood before. The Toloki they have known over the years has always been an incarnation of gloom and dignity.

At the beach he goes straight to the change-room, takes his clothes off, and remains in green briefs that have holes on them. Then he goes to the open showers, and scrubs his body with a stone, while the cool water slides down his back. Soon a crowd gathers around him, and they foolishly snicker and chortle. He had forgotten that during the holiday season, especially between Christmas and New Year, the beaches are always infested with rich tourists from the inland provinces. Even though he came especially early in order to avoid spectators while performing his ablutions, you really can't beat these inland spoilers. They seem to practically live on the beach.

A policeman, one of the idlers known as the beach patrol, comes and rudely tells him to clear off the beach.

‘Why? What wrong have I done?'

‘You are indecently dressed.'

‘What about all these other people?'

‘They are wearing bathing costumes, not underpants.'

‘Well, mine is a bathing costume too. Who decides what is a bathing costume and what is not? Where is it written that this is not a bathing costume?'

‘I don't care. When I come back, I don't want to find you here.'

He strolls away. Toloki takes his time to wash himself. He never worries about these pompous officials who like to impress the inland riff-raff by staging confrontations with him. When he finishes, he sprawls his pudgy body on the sand, and lets the morning sun dry it. Then he splashes his whole body with perfume. He is going to a funeral today. When he got home last night, there was a note on his trolley asking him to mourn at a mass funeral of five people who had died in an orgy of violence. The funeral service is due to start at about eleven. He decides to go and see Noria first, before proceeding to the cemetery.

Back in the city, he goes to furniture stores and gets as many catalogues as he can carry. He tells the salespeople that there are some customers from his village who would like to buy furniture. They would like to see the pictures first before they come to the stores to buy furniture. Of course, the salespeople don't believe him. But they don't see any harm in giving him the catalogues, which are free in any case. Then he goes to a newspaper stall, and negotiates with the owner to buy ten back issues of
Home and Garden
magazine. He buys them at only ten percent of the cover price.

He walks towards the taxi rank, and furtively picks some of the flowers that grow along the sidewalks. Then he proceeds to the pastry shop across from the taxi rank. There he buys a variety of cakes, including his favourite Swiss roll. He will buy green onions from the women who sell vegetables at a street corner just outside the pastry shop.

He gets into a taxi that will take him to the squatter camp – no, to the informal settlement. And no one turns their back on
him, nor do they cover their noses. He is very pleased that he was able to get roses this time. Their scent fills the whole taxi. Noria will love these. Indeed flowers become her.

He learnt a lot about Noria yesterday. He had not really been aware of the trials she had experienced. All he knew was what had been said about her in the village – that she was just a stuck-up bitch who was spoilt. For him, she had acquired the looming stature of a wicked woman who had destroyed his father.

It is true that Noria was responsible for Jwara's downfall, and his ultimate demise. As she grew older, she developed other interests, and on many occasions failed to honour her appointments with him. Sometimes she would tell her parents that she was going to sing for Jwara. Instead, Toloki now knows, she went to charm taxi boys. Jwara's obsession could not be quenched, so he sunk deeper and deeper into depression. He could not create without Noria. Yet his dreams did not give him any respite. The strange creatures continued to visit him in his sleep, and to demand that they be recreated the next day in the form of figurines.

Often he sat in his workshop, waiting for Noria. Noria would not come. We believed that she had become too proud. Jwara sent her messages, promising her the world. The world, however, meant sweets and chocolates. Taxi boys had much more imaginative offerings.

Sometimes she went, and sang for Jwara. Then he happily created his figurines. He would come to life, be happy with the rest of his family, and treat them with love and respect. Even after Noria had gone home, and he had closed the workshop for the night, he would be lighthearted and make jokes with Toloki and with his mother. Since this was a very unnatural
condition, Toloki would laugh nervously, and his mother would only scowl. Jwara would also buy delicacies such as canned corned beef and biscuits, and give these to his family. Toloki's mother would sneer mockingly, ‘Ha! I can see that that stuck-up bitch Noria has given you pleasure today!'

When Noria did not come, however, Jwara became morose, and moody, and irritable. He would lose his temper for no reason at all, and slap Toloki or his mother. Toloki wished that Noria could come every day so that there would be peace and happiness in the home. He hated her when she did not come, as this inflicted pain on his family.

The last straw that broke Toloki's back came about at Easter. At this time, the Methodist Church held all-night services that were popular with us all. Even those of us who were not Christians, or who belonged to other churches, went there because their services were so lively. Their hymns, their hand-clapping, their dances, filled us all with excitement, and the stone church building, that also served as the school, would overflow with enthusiastic worshippers. It was at these services that lovers met, and unmarried teenagers made babies.