Sometimes There Is a Void

by Zakes Mda

  Alas, even Cousin Mlungisi was not worldly enough to know anything about mawutwana.

  I subsequently learnt from the thurifer that mawutwana referred to sex between males and that the eating had to do with engaging in that act with the priest, who then gave the boys nice second-hand clothes that were donated by rich countries to give to the poor. I never experienced any of that myself as no priest approached me. The thurifer said it was because I was always so smartly dressed with new and clean clothes and shimmering black shoes. I was obviously not from a poor family and the priest knew that I didn’t need anything from him in exchange for mawutwana. Despite this assurance that I was not a good candidate for priestly sex, the thurifer never stopped bugging me about coming with him to the church office when the priest was alone. He assured me that he was going to teach me how to entice him. If I didn’t need clothes I could ask for money instead. A fleeting thought crossed my mind. The well had run dry since my father left; I could no longer steal money from his pants at night. I therefore could no longer afford to buy my comic books. My mother was very good at hiding her money. In any event, I would feel very bad stealing from her when she was struggling on her own without my father. What if I took up the thurifer’s offer? But I just couldn’t imagine myself doing anything of the sort.

  I longed for the Sundays when my mother would be on duty so that I could sneak back to the Methodist Church and bask in the Glory of Keneiloe.

  One Monday I went to school as usual. At recess I played soccer in the playground in front of the classrooms. I stood between a pile of bricks that we used as goalposts and dived to stop the tennis ball that we used for soccer from passing through. I was about to do one of my catlike lunges when two police vans stopped on the road and a group of armed policemen in uniform jumped out and marched military-style to the principal’s office. Somehow I knew they had come for me.

  Mkhulu-Baas personally came running and calling out my surname. The policemen were already waiting for me outside his office. Without a word he pushed me to the nearest policeman who pushed me to his superior who pointed me forward. The soccer game had stopped and everybody was watching as I was frogmarched to one of the police vans.

  At the police station I was led into a room where an array of white policemen in well-pressed military-khaki uniforms were sitting on chairs as if waiting for a performance. The only black person in the room besides me was Sergeant April, who was my interpreter. They began to question me, at first asking innocuous questions about what I ate in the morning and what subjects I liked best at school. Then they asked me about a white man who went to see my father at home. The only white man I knew who had ever been to my home was Mr Mather and I told them so.

  ‘Jy sal begin om te lieg, jy sal begin om te lieg,’ they all said in unison. You are beginning to lie. You are beginning to lie.

  I was not lying and I was not scared of them. They looked too beautiful to instil fear in me. Somehow they reminded me of the Afrikaans Taalfees that we used to have when I was still in Dobsonville, Soweto, at Lodirile Lower Primary, at Nakhile Lower Primary and at eNkolweni Higher Primary. It was the day to celebrate the Afrikaans language so the students spoke in Afrikaans all day long and dressed up in Afrikaans traditional costumes, with girls in their kappies and boys in their bush khakis. We sang Afrikaans songs such as Hasie, hoekom is jou stert so kort and recited Afrikaans poems like Muskietejag, Jou vabond, wag ek sal jou kry.

  The angry policemen reminded me of bit players at an Afrikaans Taalfees. Jy sal begin om te lieg. Jy sal begin om te lieg … rang in my ears even after they had returned me to school.

  My mother worried that something was going to happen to me. Once the Boers have their eye on you, she said, they never give up. They would come back for me even though I was not involved in any serious political activity save to yell Mayibuye iAfrika and From Cape to Cairo at innocent white motorists. They would make life hell for me if only to get at my father.

  ‘The boy must go stay with his father in Basutoland,’ my mother said.

  I dreaded those words. What about Keneiloe? What about my friend, Cousin Mlungisi? What about my two friends from next door, from the Magengenene family, Xolile and Nikelo? What about St Teresa? I was doing Standard Six and was looking forward to attending St Teresa Secondary School the following year. Like Nikelo before me. And like Xolile. They had told me so many stories about boarding school life at St Teresa. Please God, let me not be banished to Basutoland. I promise I’ll never do bad things again. I’ll never steal and lie again. Just don’t let me be banished to Basutoland.

  But the only response to my prayers was one catastrophe after another. First, Bomvana and his gang stole my pigeons in the deep of the night. By the time I discovered the theft he was cooking them for dinner.

  The second catastrophe: Diza, Mr Magengenene’s big black Labrador Retriever, was hit by a car and I was to blame. I had taken it for a walk, in fact just to show it off, on the main road that led to the town and a speeding car mowed it down and never even stopped for a second. I can still see Tapo, Nikelo’s mother, walking to the road where Diza lay dead. She was crying and sniffling softly and did not even look at me when I expressed my sorrow. She never spoke to me again after that. I could never forgive myself; this was the second dog associated with me to be hit by a car. I was still haunted by Rex. I wanted nothing to do with dogs ever again.

  The third catastrophe was the beating that I got from Teboho Mohafa, Keneiloe’s father. A group of us were playing on the road in front of the Mohafa yard. I picked up a stone and threw it at Keneiloe. She ran out of the way and challenged me to throw another one. I thought I would get her this time but she ducked and the stone hit her younger sister, Thabang, on the head. Blood spurted and she bawled in pain as she walked to her home. At first I thought I should follow her and apologise to Teboho and Hopestill. But on second thoughts I knew Teboho would kill me if I went there. So I did the next best thing; I ran home and hid under the bed.

  In no time Teboho was knocking at my door holding Thabang’s hand. Keneiloe was there too. He told my mother how I nearly killed his daughter. My mother yelled at me and promised him that she would punish me severely. But Teboho would have none of that. He wanted to give me a hiding himself. I stood in the middle of the living room and he took off his leather belt and lashed out at me. Keneiloe cried and told her daddy that we were playing, it was an accident. But Teboho continued to lash out at my buttocks and legs and shoulders. I dared not cry in the presence of Keneiloe, which made Tebobo madder. ‘He is a stubborn boy too, a cheeky boy,’ he kept on saying.

  He lashed out again.

  ‘It’s enough, Teboho, it’s enough. You will kill my child,’ my mother said, getting between me and Teboho. He was so angry he almost lashed out at my mother. But common sense prevailed and he walked out of the house with his daughters in tow.

  ‘You see what the Boers have done?’ my mother cried. ‘No man would come to my house to beat up my children if your father were here.’

  It was my turn to comfort her and to apologise for what I had done.

  ‘I know you were playing,’ she said. ‘Keneiloe said it was an accident.’

  The fourth and final catastrophe happened in December 1963. My friends from next door, Nikelo and Xolile, went to the mountain to be circumcised and initiated into manhood. That would not have been so bad in itself. After all, I only saw them during the June and December holidays since they spent all their lives at boarding schools. But my own Cousin Mlungisi decided to run to the mountain and join their circumcision school. According to custom, when a boy ran to the initiation school he could not leave, even if his parents wanted him back. He had to proceed with the ritual with the rest of the initiates. Not that Mr Tindleni wanted his son back. He was quite pleased that Cousin Mlungisi had saved his family all the trouble of arranging for his initiation at some future date. He was proud that his son was going to be a man, though he had not initially planned for the expensive ritual
. My mother was worried that I would run to the mountain as well. And with my father absent, what would she do? She pleaded with me not to do so. Although I envied Cousin Mlungisi, I decided not to cause problems for my mother. I stayed at home and furiously wrote poems and short stories. I sent some of my stories to Mr Fihla who was a primary school teacher at KwaGcina. I had seen one of his stories published in Wamba and I hoped he would advise me on how to get published. Even as I wrote to him I felt like a traitor. Mr Fihla had been one of the supporters of Headman Senoamali in that civil matter in which my father sued Senoamali for calling him a communist to the District Commissioner and Nelson Mandela came from Johannesburg to handle the case. Yes, the haunted times when Senoamali sent his stick to knock at my window at night. Mr Fihla was reputed to be one of the people who had waged a campaign against my father until he left KwaGcina.

  Apparently Mr Fihla held no grudges because he replied with a lot of useful advice and I sent my story, Igqirha laseMvubase – The Medicine Man of Mvubase – to Wamba for their consideration.

  After a month or so my friends returned from the initiation school and festivities were organised in their honor. Cattle were slaughtered, and each graduate recited a poem he had composed in praise of himself. There was a lot of singing and dancing both at the Tindleni and Magengenene homesteads. The new graduates were all dressed up in new clothes because they were men and could no longer wear their boyhood clothes. And since they were now men they could no longer associate with me. My own Cousin Mlungisi could no longer be seen in my company because I was a boy.

  This isolation was painful.

  But just then I received a letter from Wamba with a two rand note enclosed. They were going to publish my story, and the money was the fee they were paying for it. The very first money I ever earned for something I wrote.

  I no longer gave a damn about Cousin Mlungisi, Nikelo and Xolile. They could get circumcised as much as they wanted and isolate me for ever if it suited them; I would write more stories and get them published.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THIS IS JUST A coincidence. We didn’t know the tourists would be visiting the village today. We came from Johannesburg to see how the Bee People are doing and to buy a few bottles of honey. They are keen to give us the honey for free, but we always insist on paying for it. We want to support their business while at the same time teaching them good business practices. And as we are haggling over the matter on the stoep of eRestu a luxury tour bus arrives and spills out a group of excited young men and women. They are all white, except for their tour guide and the bus driver. Quite a few of them are scruffy, in keeping with how explorers of Darkest Africa should look.

  Cousin Bernard suddenly leaves the group of men he was bamboozling with philosophy while partaking of their beer and walks past us towards the bus to meet the visitors. He leaves behind him a whiff from his rich sweat glands. Press, my uncle, told me that he is averse to taking a bath. Often he is forced into the bathroom and hollers and screams as Press scrubs the dirt from Cousin Bernard’s body, with two of Press’s big sons holding him down so that he does not escape and run out of the house naked. He once did exactly that. People were aghast to see his naked fifty-year-old body running out of the gate screaming that the good people of Qoboshane should come and save him because Press and his clansmen were bent on murdering him with soap and water.

  The tour guide wants to protect his charges from the barefoot man in threadbare brown pants and heavy brown lumber jacket. But the man pushes him aside and heads straight to the nearest tourist – a blond, hirsute young man in denim jeans and a heavy backpack.

  ‘Are you a monarchist or a revolutionary sesquipedalian who wants to cannibalise my establishment?’ Cousin Bernard asks the astonished man.

  ‘Say what?’ asks the man. I know immediately he is an American.

  The drinking men on the stoep cheer and laugh. One of them says, ‘Oh, yes, Bernard has started with his big English.’

  I know all about Cousin Bernard’s ‘big English’. I am its victim every time I come for my meetings with the Bee People at eRestu. I curse the person who told him that I am a university professor; he always wants to show off to the habitués of my uncle’s tavern by bombarding me with his English. I always respond in isiXhosa, at least to the little that I can understand of his rambling sentences, and that always infuriates him. He suddenly remembers another pressing engagement elsewhere and leaves, but not before the parting shot: ‘Education has been wasted on you, wena Zanemvula.’

  Obviously Cousin Bernard thinks the hirsute man is a waste of time, for he goes to a young woman at the very moment she is stepping out of the bus.

  ‘Dot your i’s and cross your t’s, young lady,’ he says.

  The tourists gather around the two; they are quite amused because it is clear to them that the man is not quite well upstairs. The hirsute man cuts through the crowd to rescue the young lady, but Cousin Bernard firmly stands his ground between him and the woman.

  ‘He is idiotically inclined,’ says Cousin Bernard, making a grand gesture towards the hirsute man for the benefit of the young lady. ‘He is not titillated by the tintinnabulation of my grandiloquent gesture of felicitation.’

  Though the drinking men enjoy the entertainment, the Bee People and the tourist guide look on with consternation. The Bee People particularly feel embarrassed that their guests are being harassed in this manner by the village madman. They call to my uncle who is inside the store to get Cousin Bernard away. Press comes rushing out, pushes through the tourists and drags Cousin Bernard away from the group.

  ‘Goduka, Bernard,’ Press says. ‘Okanye ndizakufak’ebafini.’ Go home, Bernard, otherwise I’ll put you in a bathtub.

  Cousin Bernard does not take the threat of a bath lightly. He slinks away. When he reckons he is at a safe distance he stops and shouts back at Press: ‘Your antiestablishmentarianism disturbs the peace. With all the possibilities of your hegemony I can only say to you: Fie sirrah! Fie for shame!’

  Then he walks on to the cheers and applause of the drinking men on the stoep. I can see from the faces of the tourists that they find the whole scene quite funny, although they are suppressing outright laughter lest their fellows judge them harshly for finding humour in the behaviour of a black person with mental problems.

  Later that evening when Gugu and I get to Mafeteng in Lesotho I tell my mother about Cousin Bernard’s antics with the tourists and we laugh about it. She laughs even more when I joke that Cousin Bernard was rendered insane by the meat that my grandmother used to hide for him in her apron pocket as the favoured grandchild. I know, I know, it’s a cruel joke, but our Basotho people say lefu leholo ke ditsheho. This literally translates into ‘the biggest death is laughter’. But what it really means is that even in bereavement we joke and laugh.

  Actually, what caused Cousin Bernard’s mental impairment was his failure to heed the call of the ancestors. He was working as a clerk on the gold mines of Welkom when he first received the call in his dreams to be an igqirha – a traditional medicine man, diviner and spiritual healer. Cousin Bernard took up the call with great enthusiasm, following in the footsteps of many of my relatives on my father’s side who became traditional healers – beginning with our revered ancestor Mhlontlo who was both a king of the amaMpondomise people and a great igqirha who could turn the white man’s bullets into water.

  Cousin Bernard became an acolyte of a great shaman from the mountains of Lesotho. He attended the intlombe rituals, where fellow acolytes with their masters and mistresses beat on the cowhide drums, and danced through the night until they fell into a trance. He learnt how to groan and grunt in the language of the spirits, and how to sacrifice white goats and other beasts according to the needs and demands of particular ancestors. But there was another call on Cousin Bernard; the call of the world out there. It was so overpowering that he left the profession of traditional healing long before he could graduate, while he was still at the thwasa stage. This is the
stage when the voices of the ancestors still ring in your head, shake your body and demand obedience. He disobeyed and gave up on traditional healing. He went back to work as a clerk on the gold mine and hoped to live happily ever after. When people asked why he left before graduating into a fully fledged igqirha he said the demands of the ancestors were too extravagant. He could not afford to sacrifice to them the number of oxen that they required, and did not have any relative who was willing to help him. Well, that was not the ancestors’ problem. Their voices continued to ring in his head. Until he cracked, left the job and became a wanderer. Press heard of his plight and got him to return to Qoboshane to stay with him.

  Cousin Bernard once confided in me that there is a shitty ancestor who won’t leave him alone, even when others have decided to give him some respite. He suspects the vengeful spirit is from his father’s side of the family, which he never got to know. His mother, my father’s youngest sister, was an unwed mother who abandoned Cousin Bernard and left for Johannesburg soon after giving birth to him. She never came back. Ever. To this day.

  Fortunately, the tourists have not been rattled by him. Instead they join us on the veranda and excitedly ask questions about the village. They are from different countries, although the majority is from the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. They are on the Maluti Trail, a tour that takes them through the Eastern Cape, Lesotho and the Free State. They have come to this village particularly to look at the beekeeping project of the Lower Telle Beekeepers Collective; according to a colourful brochure one of the tourists is reading: This community-based project was initiated and is supported by Zakes Mda, one of South Africa’s leading authors, who grew up in this area.