by Zakes Mda
When Napu finally returned to the bridge, it was to a horrific sight. Vutha was dead, and scavenging dogs were fighting over his corpse. They had already eaten more than half of it. Napu bolted away screaming, ‘They have killed my son! They have killed my son!’
He ran for many miles, without even stopping to catch his breath. He did not know where he was going. He kept on repeating that they had killed his son, and he was going to chase them until he caught them. He was going to kill them and feed them to the dogs as they had done to his son. He had taken his son away, he howled, to get even with cruel Noria. But she and her wicked mother had now murdered the poor boy. People gave way hastily as he approached. He ran until he reached the big storage dam that was part of the sewerage works of the city. He dived into the dam, and drowned.
There is a long silence after Noria has told this dreadful tale. They sit lost in sad thoughts, but Noria’s eyes remain dry. Toloki remembers something from earlier days.
‘You know, Noria. I used to see a dirty beggar with a small child. It was when I had just started my business grilling meat in the city. I did not know they were your husband and your son.’
‘I cannot speak about my troubles any longer. Did you hear about Shadrack?’
‘No.’
‘He is in hospital.’
‘What is he doing there?’
‘I heard he was injured by the police. He is in a very serious condition. We must go and see him this afternoon.’
7
Shadrack lies on a hospital bed. There are all sorts of tubes and other contraptions jutting out of his body. He is also on a drip. Noria and Toloki stand beside the bed. He opens his eyes, and smiles wanly at them. They greet him, and tell him that they have come to see how he is doing. They have brought him some oranges and apples, since you do not go to a hospital to see a sick person without taking him or her something to eat. He thanks Noria for her kindness, but tells her that unfortunately he cannot eat any solid food. His body gets all its nourishment from the drip. He suggests, however, that they give the fruit to the old man in a neighbouring bed.
Toloki cannot help noticing that not once does Shadrack look at him. All the time he addresses himself to Noria. It is as if Toloki does not exist.
The ward is overcrowded. There are twenty beds packed into a small room, which is really meant to take only ten or so beds. Some patients are sleeping on thin mattresses under the beds. Most of those sleeping in the beds are strapped to contraptions like Shadrack’s. Those who are sleeping under the beds have their legs and arms in plaster casts. All these people are casualties of the war that is raging in the land. Those who are fortunate enough to have some movement left hobble around on crutches. They silently curse the war-lords, the police and the army, or even the various political organizations, depending on whom they view as responsible for their fate. The smell of infection and methylated spirits chokes them, and leaves much of their anger unarticulated.
‘What happened, Bhut’Shaddy?’
‘The boers got me, Noria. They almost killed me.’
Shadrack tells them that he was ranking in his taxi last night when he was assaulted by three white men who were driving a police van. They wore khaki uniform with insignia and carried the flag of a well-known right-wing supremacist organization. This confirmed what people always said, that the right-wing supremacists have strong links with the police. The government has always denied this.
Shadrack’s ordeal began when he received a message to pick up some passengers at the railway station, minutes before midnight. At the pick-up point, he parked his kombi next to the kerb, and waited. Soon after that, a police van pulled up next to him, blocking his way. The three men climbed out and rushed to his door. They jerked it open, showed him their flag, and aggressively asked if he knew what it was. He told them he was not interested. They then attacked him.
Shadrack speaks with great difficulty. He chokes with emotion.
‘Maybe you can tell us the whole story when you are better, Bhut’Shaddy. Maybe talking about it makes you worse right now.’
‘No, Noria. I want you to know what they did to me. They were like crazed people. They punched me. They dragged me out of my kombi and kicked me. I tried to scream, but they throttled me. Then they loaded me like a sack of potatoes into the police van.’
They lowered the van’s side-blinds, and drove away with him. After about half an hour, Shadrack could feel the van reversing. It stopped and the door was opened. His kidnappers dragged him out of the van, and he was ordered to enter a dilapidated room whose door was opened just in front of him. It was freezing in the room. It was filled with naked corpses lying on the cement floor. More corpses were stacked on big shelves against the walls.
The men told him that they were going to kill him, and started assaulting him again. He stumbled over the corpses, and fell among them. When he tried to rise, the corpse of an old man was thrown onto his chest. He fell down again. One of the men grabbed him by the shoulders and ordered him to make love to a corpse of a young woman.
‘I told them I’d rather die than do that with a dead person.’
‘What did they say they wanted from you, Bhut’Shaddy? Why were they doing all this to you?’
‘They didn’t ask for anything, Noria. They were doing it just because it was a fun thing to do.’
After further assaults he was ordered out of the mortuary, and driven back to his taxi. They just dumped him there, after thanking him profusely for the good time he had given them. ‘Let’s do it again sometime soon,’ they said, shaking his limp hand. Another taxi driver saw him lying in the road next to his old kombi. He took him to the central police station where he made a statement.
‘Only a few minutes ago, just before you arrived here, I was told that one policeman had been arrested in connection with the incident.’
‘That’s better, Bhut’Shaddy. At least they are doing something about it.’
‘Only because I have all the evidence, and full descriptions of the policemen involved. I was smart enough to contact my lawyers.’
Shadrack explains that last night, while he was writing the statement, the police officers denied that the vehicle he was describing was a police van. A Lieutenant-General even made some thinly-veiled threats, saying that if he proceeded with the matter, it would make a lot of important people angry. When important people were angry, he warned, there was no knowing what cannon they might unleash. The police could certainly not be responsible for what these angry people would do.
‘Why don’t you forget about the whole matter and go home to your wife and kids?’
‘I am not forgetting about the matter, sir. I have been beaten up and tortured for nothing. I am laying a charge against the police. I am contacting my lawyer right away. I am contacting human rights lawyers too.’
‘That’s the problem with these educated ones. They think they know everything. You are a stubborn man. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.’
Now the police have admitted that it was indeed their van. What makes him mad is that they claim that this is an isolated incident, which does not form part of any pattern. Yet many other taxi drivers have gone through similar tortures. The experience is known as ‘the hell-ride’ in the taxi business. Taxi drivers who have wanted to save their lives have made love to the corpses of beautiful women with bullet wounds. Although many have survived to tell the story, some have died from the beatings. Their bodies have then been stripped naked, and left among the other corpses in the mortuary. It was sheer luck that Shadrack was able to take the registration number of the van, and then contacted his lawyers immediately. Lots of taxi drivers just consider ‘the hell-ride’ an occupational hazard, and never do anything about it. But with Shadrack, these sadists picked the wrong victim. He says he is going to sue the government for a lot of money.
‘I tell you, I am going to be rich, Noria. They don’t know what’s coming to them. I am unleashing my own cannon. The hell-ride is going to make me rich
. I am going to buy a brand new kombi, straight out of the box. I am going to build a big house – a real house made of bricks and roofed with tiles.’
Toloki is amazed at this man – who has ignored him since opening his eyes – surrounded by all the contraptions that speak of how close to the door of death he lies. Yet all he can think of is how rich he is going to be.
Noria tells Shadrack that they must now leave. She will come back to see him again very soon. Toloki and Noria are just about to walk out of the door of the ward when Shadrack calls Noria back. She goes back to his bed, while Toloki remains at the door, straining his ears to catch every word they say.
‘Noria, is there any hope?’
‘Oh, yes, Bhut’Shaddy. I am sure you’ll get well again. Soon you’ll be back in your business.’
‘I mean about us, Noria. Is there any hope?’
‘No, there is no hope. Absolutely no hope. I am very sorry about it, Bhut’Shaddy, but there is nothing I can do.’
‘What do you see in him, Noria?’
‘In who?’
‘In Toloki. He has nothing to offer you.’
‘He knows how to live, Bhut’Shaddy’
‘He stinks!’
‘Not today, he doesn’t. And he won’t stink again.’
Toloki and Noria walk down the street to the bus stop where they will catch a bus that will drop them at the main taxi rank in the city. There they will be able to catch a taxi back to the settlement. They do not know when or how it happened, but they find themselves actually holding hands. They both pull away in embarrassment.
‘I still don’t understand it, Noria. You lead a difficult life. To eat you must draw water for shebeen queens. Yet you turn down a man who can change your life forever.’
‘I have been chewed, Toloki. Chewed, and then spewed.’
Toloki has no idea what she means by this. But he decides not to question her further. Sometimes she talks in riddles. All that really matters is that she cares for him, as a homeboy of course. He cares for her as well, as a homegirl. Remember, he is of the stuff that venerable monks are made of.
Dusk has fallen over the settlement by the time they reach the shack. Noria opens the door, and they both enter. Noria’s shack is never locked. None of the shacks in the settlement are ever locked, since there is nothing worth stealing in them. Only rich people like Shadrack lead the lives of birds that fear for their nests, and have to be on the look-out all the time to check that no one breaks into their property to steal.
Noria lights a lamp that she has made out of a half-jack bottle. There is a hole in the bottle cap, through which a wick made of an old rag is passed. She has filled the bottle with paraffin, which she got from one of the neighbours she often helps with water. They spread some papers on the floor, and sit down. It is strange for Toloki to be in a house. For many years, he has spent all his evenings in waiting rooms.
He has not slept in a house since his shack was destroyed by the vigilantes many years ago. He had just started working as a Professional Mourner at the time. Funerals were held only on Saturday or Sunday mornings those days, because death was not as prevalent then as it is at present. Today, as you know, there are funerals every day, because if the bereaved were to wait until the weekend to bury their dead, then mortuaries would overflow, and cemeteries would be overcrowded with those attending funerals. As a matter of fact, even with funerals taking place daily, the mortuaries are bursting at the seams, and the cemeteries are always jam-packed. Often there are up to ten funeral services taking place at the same time, and hymns flow into one another in unplanned but pleasant segues.
In those days, Toloki used to sit in the sun during the week, and wait for the bulldozers. Often they came during the day while people were at work. When he saw them coming, he would rush into the shack and take all his furniture out. This consisted of a single bed, two chairs, a small table on which he put his primus stove, and a bathtub. Children who remained in the other shacks would also try to save their family valuables.
Bulldozers would move in and flatten the shacks, and then triumphantly drive away. Residents would immediately rebuild, and in no time the shanty town would hum with life again. Like worker bees, the dwellers would go about their business of living.
When bulldozers failed to get rid of the shanty towns, the government devised new strategies. They recruited some of the unemployed residents, and formed them into vigilante groups. The function of these groups was to protect the people. Their method was simple, but very effective. They demanded protection money from the residents. This was collected on a weekly basis and paid to the leader of the vigilantes, who had given himself the title of Mayor. Some residents refused to pay, since they did not see why they needed to be protected by a group of layabouts who spent their days in shebeens. The shacks of those who refused to pay would mysteriously catch fire in the middle of the night. Babies sometimes died in these fires. The next day, the survivors, with the help of their neighbours, would carry out the task of rebuilding, and would make sure that they paid the protection fee in future.
Toloki was adamant that he was not going to pay any protection fee. People who were not keen to see him die advised him to stop playing the hero and pay his protection fee like all other decent citizens. One day he was summoned before the Mayor.
‘I hear you are not prepared to pay the protection fee.’
‘Because I don’t see why I should pay it.’
‘Do you think the residents who pay it are foolish? Have you ever heard of any family which diligently pays its protection fee having their house catch fire?’
Toloki laughed, and told the Mayor that he must not forget that they used to drink together when he still had his boerewors business in town.
‘That is why I called you here, because I know you personally, and I don’t want to see you hurt. Normally we never bother to warn people who refuse to pay. We just ignore them, and when their shacks catch fire they start running to us for protection. But in your case, I said, I know Toloki. Even though he is now doing strange things at funerals, call him here so that I can advise him like a brother that he should pay his protection fee.’
Toloki cursed under his breath, and left. The Mayor remained sitting there, with a look that clearly told of the sorrow he felt for the poor foolish man.
That night, Toloki suddenly felt hot in his sleep. When he woke up, his shack was on fire. He was only able to save his venerable costume. He stood at a distance, and watched as raging flames consumed all his dreams.
Then he walked away in a dazed state. He did not know where he was going. But his feet led him to the docklands, where he had used to work when he first came to the city, and where he had slept in waiting rooms and in toilets. He was going to establish his home in one of the quayside waiting rooms, and eschew forever the company of men. And of women.
It is strange how things don’t change in these shanty towns or squatter camps or informal settlements or whatever you choose to call them. The same vigilante groups exist today, protecting the residents the same way they did eighteen or so years ago, when Toloki still had his shack. The situation is even more complicated these days, what with the tribal chief wreaking havoc with his hostel-dwelling migrants. But today people are strongly united. None of these groups are ever able to gain any lasting foothold in the settlements and in the townships. People fight back.
Toloki’s eyes roam the pictures on the wall. It is a beautiful house, even if he who had a hand in its creation says so. If you don’t praise yourself while you are still alive, no one else will. They will only praise you in their funeral orations when you are dead.
He wonders why Noria has invited him to stay with her. And why he agreed, turning against his vow of living the life of a hermit for the rest of his days. Things have happened too fast for his comprehension. He only met Noria on Wednesday, at the Christmas funeral of her son. And only four days later, on this memorable Sunday, he is sitting with her alone in her shack. He has m
oved all his worldly possession from the headquarters that have been his home for eighteen or so years.
What power does this woman have, who has dragged him into communion with live human beings, when he had vowed to dedicate all his life to the dead? What is the secret of her strength? Only four days ago she was burying her child. But here she is now, taking this tragedy in her stride. She does not carry her grief like a cross, but goes on with her life. And she says Toloki knows how to live! Only once has she mentioned the dead child, that time they fetched building materials from the docklands on Boxing Day. Who was the father of this child anyway?
She is looking at him with her penetrating eyes. Her poppy-seed skin glistens in the flickering light of the paraffin lamp. She breaks the silence.
‘Why don’t you ask me, Toloki?’
‘Ask you what?’
‘The questions that are racing through your mind.’
‘You read minds, Noria. How did you know about the questions?’
‘Go ahead and ask.’
‘Maybe it is personal, Noria. But I want to know about your second child, the child we buried four days ago.’
‘You want to know about Vutha?’
‘You are confusing me, Noria. You told me that Vutha died and was eaten by dogs even before you came to the city . . . perhaps fifteen or would it be seventeen years ago now . . . well, the exact years don’t matter. But it was many years ago. If he were alive today he would be a young man, maybe with children of his own.’
Noria smiles at the thought of grandchildren.
‘I would have been a young grandmother, don’t you think?’
But Toloki is not in the mood to discuss grandparenting.
‘Who was the father of this new Vutha?’
He is ashamed of himself for asking the question. Issues of this nature are sensitive, especially since we know how Noria used to be free with her favours to men back in the village. But Noria is not at all angry with him. She smiles and says the child had no father.