Ways of Dying (5 page)

We told many stories about her, especially when women gathered at the river to wash clothes. She did not seem to be bothered. That Mountain Woman had no shame. The story
we told every day, with colourful variations depending on who was telling it, originally happened when she was pregnant with Noria. During the later stages of her pregnancy, she went back to her home village in the mountains. It was the custom that she should give birth to her first child among her own people, and be nursed back to health, and be advised about baby care, by her own mother, and by other female relatives in her village. She went to the government clinic every month to be examined by the nurses, and to get the free powdered milk, cooking oil, and oatmeal that were given to pregnant women. Every time the story was told we exclaimed cynically, ‘Oh, they have clinics too in the mountain villages!'

During that period a group of health assistants came to the village, and stayed at the clinic. They were young men who were being trained to educate villagers about primary health care. Sometimes they helped the nurses to bandage the wounds of young men who had participated in stick fights, or in brawls that involved beer and women. During the few weeks that they stayed there, the health assistants accumulated quite a reputation in the villages around the clinic, for they went out drinking every night and did naughty things with the young women whose husbands were migrant workers in the mines.

One day That Mountain Woman noticed that the cooking oil and powdered milk were about to run out. The whole family used this food carelessly because they knew that she got it free from the clinic. Even though it was not her day to attend the clinic, she decided she would go all the same. The nurses would shout at her, and tell her that she was meant to come only when her time was due at the end of the month, but she was going to pretend that she had come because she had felt some pains that morning. An added incentive was that she had heard from some of the pregnant women in her village that there was a new type of food being rationed out at the clinic. These were powdered eggs that the villagers referred to as the
eggs of a tortoise. They tasted like real hen eggs when you mixed them with water and fried them in cooking oil.

She rode on her father's horse, since the clinic was located in a valley over the hills, which was quite some distance from her own village. It is said that she was eight months pregnant at the time. At the clinic, she joined the queue of pregnant women who were gossiping about the handsome young health assistants who had invaded the valley with a blaze of town sophistication and class. The young women of the valley were gaga about the health assistants, and the men were so angry that they were heard on occasion threatening to castrate the young upstarts who had the morals of pigs. There was a tinge of envy in the voices of the women in the queue, since nature had deprived them, at least for the time being, of the pleasure of enjoying the attentions of the handsome visitors.

The turn of That Mountain Woman came, and she went into the room where she was to be examined by a nurse. At that moment, there was no nurse in the room. She stripped naked, and lay belly upwards on the bed as was the practice, waiting for the nurse to come and palpate her. Instead, one of the health assistants entered the room. She was surprised and ashamed, and tried to cover her nakedness with her hands. But the young man said, ‘Don't be afraid of me. I am a doctor.' Then he began to palpate her, and within minutes, the crotch of his pants was on fire. She felt herself relaxing with him, and they introduced themselves to each other.

‘You are a beautiful woman. I think I have fallen in love with you.'

‘But I am heavy with child!'

‘You won't be like that forever.'

That Mountain Woman felt flattered that even in her most shapeless moments, a whole doctor found her attractive. He told her that even though she was pregnant, there would be no problems if they were to decide to seal their newfound love
with a bit of adult merriment. ‘And I should know, because I am a doctor,' he added.

‘There is no way we can meet. I come from the village over the hills.'

‘I have a plan. This evening pretend that you are ill. Ask your people to send for me. Tell them that I am the doctor who examined you today, and I am the only one who understands your illness. Then I'll come.'

The health assistant ran away quickly when he heard the footsteps of the nurse in the corridor. ‘Don't tell her I was here,' he said. ‘Otherwise she will spoil our thing.'

That evening, That Mountain Woman was attacked by strange pangs in her abdominal area. She moaned and wailed and asked for the doctor who had attended her that day. Old women of the village who knew everything about childbirth and all the complications that sometimes occurred in women, came and offered to help. But she cursed them out of the house, and demanded to see no one but the doctor who examined her that day. A horseman was sent to the clinic over the hills, and found the health assistant waiting for just that message. He said, ‘Yes, I am the doctor you are looking for. Go back and tell my patient that I'll get the clinic Land Rover and come immediately.' The horseman rode back with the message, and the health assistant went to ask for a Land Rover from the nurse-clinician in charge of the clinic.

‘Why do you want the Land Rover at this late hour?'

‘We are supposed to hold a meeting with the village health workers in the village over the hills. I need to go there and make arrangements with the chief.'

‘You are indeed a hard worker! You are always thinking of your work even after hours. I am surely going to recommend you for promotion when I write my report to the head-office.'

Unfortunately the Land Rover was being used by another nurse-clinician who had gone with some nurses to visit the
outposts. What was he going to do, since he had already promised the desirable woman that he was coming? How would he placate the fire that raged in the crotch of his pants? Wearing a white coat, with a stethoscope stolen from the nurse-clinician's office hanging around his neck, our health assistant went to the police station and asked the officers for their Land Rover. He told them that there was an emergency in the village over the hills. ‘Don't worry, doctor, we'll take you there ourselves.' And two conscientious policemen drove him to the village over the hills.

He rushed into the rondavel where That Mountain Woman was lying on a mat on the floor, groaning in pain. Grandmothers were all around her, trying to persuade her to chew the herbs that would drive the pain away. He knelt down beside her, and began to palpate her belly. Then in a grave voice he said, ‘I don't want to alarm you, grandmothers, but I think we are looking at something very serious here. I must remain alone with the patient. Please go out, and don't let anyone disturb me.'

Soon a crowd had gathered around the hut. The grandmothers had spread it throughout the village that the woman was dying. The miracle doctor who, by the grace of God, happened to be at the clinic over the hills just at the time when his help was needed, was trying to save her life. Wasn't it fortunate that the clinic which had never had a doctor stationed there before, but had always been staffed by nurses and nurse-clinicians, happened to have a doctor at that very moment? Indeed she was a fortunate woman. The crowd grew larger and larger, and at the same time festal chatter grew louder and louder. Soon the doctor would come out and announce what was ailing the poor woman. But minutes passed, and the doctor did not come out. Those people nearest the door thought they heard some delicate moans and heavy breathing leaking out of the door of the rondavel. The poor woman must be suffering so much!

An hour had passed, and everyone was beginning to get worried. Had something terrible happened to the poor woman? Or perhaps to the doctor? A naughty grandmother whose mind was full of dirty thoughts jokingly said, ‘Ha! Wasn't it odd that she smiled when the doctor entered?' Then all those who were in the hut when the doctor arrived suddenly remembered that, yes, she did smile.

These idle babblers planted a seed of suspicion in the mind of the woman's father. Ignoring the advice of those around him, who said that if he angered the doctor his daughter might never be cured, he suddenly kicked the door down. He rushed into the hut, followed by those who were nearest the door. Inside the hut they were greeted by a scene that left them sweating with anger and disgust. Those who were outside the hut were amazed to hear screams. Then the doctor was flung through the door like a piece of rag. His pants flew after him, and fell in the midst of giggling schoolgirls. Men used their sticks on him, and he screamed, ‘You don't understand, good people! I was using a new method of curing the pains on her!'

But the villagers did not believe in new-fangled remedies that involved nakedness. They would have killed him had it not been for the policemen, who took the disgraced doctor away to beat him up themselves. They were even angrier than the villagers, for they said the fake doctor had wasted their time. The young men of the village were not satisfied with the arrangement. ‘Why should the police have the monopoly on beating up this pig? We need our share too.' But who could argue with the dogs of the government, as policemen were known throughout the villages? The last time the villagers saw the naked figure of the doctor, it was being frogmarched in front of the police Land Rover, in the glare of the headlights, and it was screaming, ‘Please forgive me, fathers! It was all a mistake! I will never do it again!'

We told the story over and over again, and we laughed, and we said, ‘That Mountain Woman has no shame.' But one could detect a smack of envy in our voices when we said that. Those were adventures that would never be seen in our conservative village. Noria was born a month after this incident with the doctor. Six months later, when That Mountain Woman returned to our village with baby Noria on her back, we already knew everything about the scandal. We thought she would be hiding her head in shame, and would at last be a humble person, but no, she continued to be her old brash self. She even laughed when someone, who happened to be braver than the rest of us, asked her discreetly and in well-chosen words about the scandal. That Mountain Woman had no shame.

When Noria was born it was generally believed by the mountain people that her ears looked like those of the doctor. The story spread to our village as well. Though we had never seen him with our own eyes, we strongly believed until this day, that the doctor contributed Noria's ears. The nurses at the clinic tried, to no avail, to explain that Noria could not have the doctor's ears since That Mountain Woman was already eight months pregnant when she had merriment with him. Noria was already formed, with ears and all. But we refused to believe the nurses, who would obviously say anything to protect their colleague. We insisted that Noria's ears were those of the doctor. We all marvelled, ‘Xesibe has no features. How did he manage to make such a beautiful girl?' Indeed Noria's father, a stubby man who wore a dirty brown blanket at all times and in all types of weather, had a permanently wry countenance.

It can be boring just to sit and watch ships come and go, especially on Boxing Day when there are not many ships moving in and out of the harbour. Some come, but they will only be
unloaded tomorrow, after the holiday, unless they carry perishable food. But memories of his past fill Toloki's time, so much so that the boisterous noise of the drunken sailors and their prostitutes does not disturb him at all, for he cannot hear it. His thoughts are of Noria and of the village and of the people of the village. When Noria left the village he never thought he would see her again. And later he also left. But now it would seem that his road, and that of Noria, were meant to cross from time to time in this journey of life. They grew up together as children. Come to think of it, at the very first funeral he ever attended back in the village, he was with Noria.

The first funeral. He was thirteen and Noria was ten. The first Nurse that he saw in his life was the principal of the village primary school where he was a pupil. A schoolgirl, who had been Noria's friend during her life, had died a painful death of the gun. She was the first person that we knew of in our village to be shot dead, and it happened in the city. She had gone there, with other pupils who were in the school choir, to bury another pupil who came from the city to attend the village school where there were no disruptions, but who had unfortunately caught pneumonia and died.