Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

  One morning when Noria was serving tea to the big bosses, a tray laden with cups and saucers slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor. The china broke into smithereens. Noria was summarily dismissed from work.

  Depressed and miserable, she went to the hospital to tell her mother of the misfortune that had befallen her. Another patient, whose bed was next to her mother’s heard her story and said, ‘I was only admitted yesterday, and I have been told that I am going to be here for a long time, like your mother. I was working for the Bible Society as a sweeper. Why don’t you go and see them? I am sure my job is still vacant.’ Noria thanked her, and immediately went to the Bible Society. She got the job.

  She was much happier at the Bible Society. The women who worked there were Christians, and acted as a support group. There was one particular woman who was always expensively dressed, yet she was only a sweeper like Noria. Once Noria had got to know her, she asked, ‘How do you manage to look so smart on your salary? Or do they pay you more?’ The woman told her that she had other means of earning money. Sweeping at the Bible Society was only a front that gave her respectability in the eyes of her family and neighbours. The work that really paid was in the evening at the hotel. ‘You can come and join me tonight and see how I work.’

  That evening Noria went to the hotel with her new friend. She knew that in the village her son would probably go to sleep on an empty stomach. Xesibe could not be bothered with feeding his grandchild. In fact, in the evenings, he had taken to visiting his friends for a drink of beer that extended to the small hours of the morning. Then he sang his way home, and slept on his bed without bothering to take off his clothes or even his gumboots. Noria’s hope was that Vutha would be wise enough to join the herdboys for their evening meal, which they cooked for themselves outside their hovel. One day Vutha would understand that his mother loved him very much, and that she was doing all this for him.

  At the hotel, Noria learnt the art of entertaining white men who came from across the seas. In return, they bought her drinks and paid her a lot of money. Unlike her friend who introduced her to the trade, she did not find it necessary to continue working at the Bible Society. She had no need to preserve a respectable front. After all, she was earning more money in a single night than she earned in a month of drudgery either in the government offices or at the Bible Society.

  She bought her son new clothes, and school uniform. She enrolled him at a private school that catered for children of his age in town. She employed a woman whose only job was to look after Vutha. In the mornings, the woman bathed him, and dressed him in his new school uniform. Then she took him to the taxi rank where he caught a mini-bus taxi to town. Our tongues began to wag about this whole suspicious affair. Did Noria think that her child was too good for the village school, where all the children of the village, including Noria herself, had gone? Anyway, whoever heard of such a young baby going to school? Where did she get all the money to spoil the brat, and to buy herself such wonderful clothes that looked like those worn by women in magazines? What kind of work was she doing? We saw her come back from town in the mornings, and leave in the late afternoons. Sometimes she only met with Vutha at the bus stop when he was coming back from school, and she was leaving for her night work. Xesibe added to the mystery when he assured us in the drinking places that none of Noria’s new-found wealth came from him.

  Sometimes Noria went to see her mother in hospital, accompanied by one or other of the white men she entertained. They bought fat cakes and fish and chips from a cafe and took these delicacies to That Mountain Woman. Oh, yes, the town had grown so big that it even had a cafe that sold fish and chips. That Mountain Woman would become very excited, and would address Noria in our own language so that the white men would not understand her: ‘You hold tight, my child. Your father thought he could destroy you. But you are strong like your mother. I am going to get well, and when I am out of this damn hospital I am going to teach that scoundrel a bitter lesson.’

  Vutha was in his second year at the private school in town, and things seemed to be working out well for everyone, until one morning Noria found the woman who looked after Vutha crying.

  ‘It is your father, Noria.’

  ‘What has happened? Is he dead?’

  ‘I wish he were dead.’

  The woman explained that at night, when Vutha was asleep, Xesibe tried to creep between her blankets. He wanted to take advantage of her, but she refused. He had tried it before, and when she had refused him the first time and the second time, she thought that he was going to give up. But he began to threaten her with violence, and wanted to take her valuables by force. She said she was going to pack her things and go, since she was not prepared to stay in a home where the man of the house could not control his raging lust. She was a church woman, and a married woman with a husband and children. The fact that she was in need of a job did not mean that her body was for sale.

  Noria begged her not to go, and immediately went to confront her father. She found him near one of his many kraals tanning some hide with which he was going to make straps for harnessing oxen to the yoke.

  ‘What do you think you are doing, father?’

  ‘I am tanning leather, that’s what.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I am talking about. You tried to rape the woman who looks after Vutha.’

  ‘Did you inherit your manners from your mother? Where did you learn to speak to your own father like that?’

  ‘Mother was right about you all along. You have the morals of a dog. What am I going to do with Vutha if this woman leaves because of you? Are you going to look after him?’

  ‘Now that you have a lot of money, you think you can talk to me any way you like? You have taken after your mother. Leave my house at once! Take everything of yours and leave my house!’

  Noria waited for Vutha to come back from school. Once more she found herself unceremoniously packing her things, this time not into a pillow case, but into three large suitcases. When Vutha came back from school, they said good-bye to the woman who looked after him, and loaded the suitcases on a wheelbarrow. Noria pushed the heavy wheelbarrow to the bus stop, followed by a puzzled Vutha. When the bus arrived, the conductors loaded the suitcases and the wheelbarrow onto the carrier on top of the bus. The two banished passengers boarded.

  Although it had been more than two years since Noria was kicked out of her marital home by her husband, she went straight back to the brickyard shack, pushing her overloaded wheelbarrow, and followed by Vutha. She kicked the door open, and found a woman cooking the evening meal on a primus stove. She could not tell whether it was the same woman for whom she was expelled from her home, or a different one. To her this was not important.

  ‘Woman, I am back in my house. You collect your rags and go!’

  ‘Hey, Noria, you can’t just barge in . . .’

  ‘You, Napu, if you value your life, you will shut up!’

  The woman waited for Napu to come to her defence, but he seemed confused. He did not know what to do. There was fear in his eyes. He did not know what gave Noria the courage to act the way she was acting. Who knew what she was capable of, coming home with all that confidence and kicking up a row? She was behaving like a raving lunatic, and no one argues with a lunatic.

  ‘I say to you, woman, this little piece of human waste is my husband. And I have come back to my house. I say if you value your life you will leave immediately.’

  The woman rushed for the door, but Noria pulled her back.

  ‘No, you don’t just leave like that. Take everything of yours.’

  The poor woman packed her belongings into a pillow case and left. Napu tried to follow her, calling her name. But Noria stood at the door, and told him that he was not going anywhere.

  ‘Let the bitch go. Your loving and loyal wife is back, Napu.’

  She said these words with so much venom that Napu froze in his tracks. That night Noria did not go to work at the hotel, but slept with
Vutha. In the morning she supervised her son while he washed himself, and put on his uniform. Then she showed him the road to his school, and went back to the shack. Napu sullenly left for work, and Noria remained brooding over her life. In the afternoon she went to see her mother in the hospital. That Mountain Woman had wasted away to a shadow, and was in continual agony. Still, she had faith that she was going to get well and go back home to practise her medicine, and to take her vengeance on Xesibe. Specialists had been coming from the city at least once every six months for the past two years to take a look at her. Noria decided not to tell her about Xesibe’s attempted escapade with the woman who looked after Vutha.

  ‘You have gone back to that good-for-nothing Napu? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘I want to give my marriage a second chance, mother.’

  ‘A second chance? It’s more like the hundredth chance. And is Napu going to allow you to continue with your work at the hotel?’

  ‘I will take a break from my work at the hotel, and see if my marriage will work. If it does not work, I can always go back to the hotel.’

  ‘What has come over you, Noria? How will Napu manage to support Jealous Down at an expensive school like that?’

  ‘Vutha will have to go to an ordinary school, mother.’

  ‘Do you call him by that terrible name of those uncultured people?’

  Noria was hardened by now, and she fought back every time Napu tried to be rude or cruel to her. The bravado that he used to muster when he dealt with That Mountain Woman had fizzled out. On the days when he came home drunk, he would try to assert his manhood. But she would put him in his place. Sobriety brought sullenness. Noria told Vutha that his father was a sour-faced koata. At night she slept with her son, and Napu slept alone.

  There was no direct communication between husband and wife. Noria said whatever she wanted to say through the medium of Vutha. For instance, when she was particularly fed up with Napu she would say, ‘Vutha, my child, even though you have lived in this town for so many years, you are still a koata!’ Or when Napu came home late, she would say, ‘Vutha, my child, why do you come home drunk and so late?’ And Vutha would laugh and say, ‘Am I drunk, mama? Or is it Napu who is drunk?’ Napu would snarl, ‘I am not Napu to you. I am your father, damn it!’ Sometimes the variation would go thus, ‘Oh, Vutha my child, you smell like a toilet. What have you been drinking, and how many women did you sleep with?’ Vutha enjoyed these little games of indirect communication. He would laugh and say, ‘But, mama, it is Napu who smells like a toilet.’

  Whenever Noria went to the shops and came back a little bit late, Napu would lock her out. She would knock at the door, and at the small window of the shack. Inside the shack Vutha would wreak havoc, standing by the window, throwing plates at Napu, and shouting, ‘Open for my mother, you Napu! Open for my mother!’ Napu would finally open the door for Noria, and after she entered the shack she would say, ‘Vutha, my child, why are you so stupid? You will be a koata forever. I am only a few minutes late and you lock me out.’ And Vutha would respond, ‘It is Napu who is stupid, mama.’

  That Mountain Woman finally died in peace at the hospital. Her funeral was an impressively big one, with many people from faraway villages coming to pay their last respects. It was only after her death that we saw how popular she had been. Noria was the Nurse at the funeral, and she moved many of those attending when she vividly described the painful road that her mother took to the other world; a road so long that it took her more than two years of pain to travel. She proudly explained that her mother did not just succumb like a coward, but fought bravely against death. She was much of a fighter in death as she had been in life. Even the specialists from the city had exclaimed in wonderment, as people who suffered from her disease did not last that long, but died within six months.

  We were amazed at the dignity with which Noria carried out her heavy and heart-rending task. Some of us had objected when she was made the Nurse. We thought she was too young and inexperienced for such a grave responsibility. But we were told that it was her mother’s wish that she should be the Nurse. And there she was, doing such a great job!

  After the funeral Noria did not stay at her home, even though Xesibe pleaded with her to stay for a few days while certain traditional rituals were performed. She insisted on going back to her shack in town, and spoke bitter words to her father.

  ‘You never even went to see my mother when she was in hospital.’

  ‘I did, Noria. I did.’

  ‘Only three times in two years! Don’t deny it, you are glad she is dead.’

  ‘I loved your mother, Noria.’

  When she returned to her shack, however, she was dumbfounded to find it empty. Not even her own clothes were left. Noria knew immediately that Napu had finally carried out a threat he had sometimes made in his drunken moments: that one day he was going to kidnap Vutha and run away with him to a place where Noria would never find them. At the time, Noria had thought this was just an idle threat.

  Noria spent days on end looking for Vutha. The police did not even try to help. They said it was a family matter. Finally, after months of searching, she gave up. By now she was a broken woman who had lost everything that meant something in her life. Still, she was absolutely convinced that one day Vutha would return to her. She decided to go to the city, to start a new life.

  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.