The words enter through Bongani’s ears and he thinks he may never be able to hear again. But he does, and wishes he has not.
“We left you to look after our homestead and you destroy it? Coward! How can you let a woman rule our homestead? Hhe? Don’t you see that you will kill our homestead if you let that woman of yours lead you astray? Have you ever heard of a Hlubi whose wife hauls him around by the nose?”
The anger in the man seems to be the cause of the cold air that Bongani feels and breathes. He feels so cold that he thinks he may freeze to death.
“I say,” the man continues, “if you are incapable of running our household, I will kill you!” At these last words the man plunges his spear into the ground and it comes out red with blood. “A man is a man thanks to his children!” the man says, as if in conclusion, and disappears from Bongani’s view.
Bongani stands up and turns around twice. He sees there is nothing around him, but it feels as if something dangerous is looking at him. He jumps and cries, “Oh! My mother!” when he hears the baboons laughing not very far from him. He runs down to his car and the baboons laugh louder now, their voices enhanced by the mountains, which also sound as if they are laughing at him. Bongani locks himself in the car and tries many times to start it without success. He is trembling and trying to get that vision out of his mind. Was he dreaming up there or was what he saw a visitation? What he knows for sure is that, either way, he has seen a man who is certainly his ancestor. The message is that his ancestor wants him to give birth to many Hlubi boys who will also give birth to yet more Hlubi boys when they grow up.
Realising his ancestor’s command is the same as his own wish, Bongani is happy. Only now is he able to start his car, reverse it and turn back home. He drives a little faster when he looks at his wristwatch and sees that he has spent more time in the mountains than he thought he would. But now he has more courage to continue with the struggle for his manly right, knowing that his ancestors support him. He needs children and he is going to have them. No wife of his – yes, of his – will deny him the privilege of having children. Never!
All these years he has been trying to reason with his wife that they should at least have two children, a boy and a girl, if possible. He cannot forget that every time he has tried to speak to her about this, she asks him whether he married her because he loves her or because he wants to procreate. Now that she has deprived him for so long, he wants to have ten children: seven boys and three girls. Yes. He wants ten children, at least ten children. His great ancestor will be pleased with him when he has fathered so many Hlubi boys who will continue the Hlubi line. He can see in his mind’s eye a number of cute, healthy boys who precede each other by only a year. Yes. Because Nomsa has deprived him of the joys of fatherhood for so long, she is now going to bear him a child every other year. The good thing is that he is working and earning a lot of money through his other position in the Bambudonga (Catch-the-Wall) Regional Council. What is the use of having a lot of money if you do not have children to spend it on?
It is half past six now as Bongani arrives home. He parks his car in his garage and notices that the 4x4, as they refer to Nomsa’s car, is parked outside its garage. He takes some time, admiring his huge and beautiful double-storey house. Who else but him in Gxumani has a house with stairs?
The place name, Gxumani, is the diligent work of the Rainbow Nation. It refers to what used to be two mutually exclusive areas. The one is Canaan, formerly a suburb designated as Whites Only during the years of Separate Development. Now it has been usurped by rich blacks like himself, while many whites have left to live in the other, even more expensive, parts of town where blacks cannot yet afford to buy. Ndlalidlindoda began as an informal settlement, but now many people have built houses as big as eight rooms and more, while others prefer to emulate the structure of their rural homelands by building up to three houses, some of which are rondavels and others called “kneel-and-pray”. But none can compare with the houses in Canaan, and certainly none are as beautiful as his. So the best thing to say is that there is no house in Canaan as costly as his, thanks to his fine job as a principal and finer one as chancellor in the Bambudonga Regional Council. This makes him proud.
Now no one goes to Gxumani without noticing or hearing of Bongani Hadebe, the rich man. His home has become a landmark in Canaan, which people use to direct their relatives. “Tell the driver that you will alight at The Stairs!” people will tell others, to Bongani’s delight. “At The Stairs!” those who take the taxis in his street say if they want to get off. All this makes Bongani happy, but it is always spoiled by the fact that he does not have children. He feels that not having children reduces him to the level of the common people. These poor people do not have a beautiful house and a lot of money like him, but he also does not have children like them. It feels as if what they have is stronger and more valuable than what he has.
“My uncle is a policeman!” one of his friends used to boast when they were growing up, and Bongani always beat him by saying, “My uncle is a chief!” Now he can only say, “I have a double-storey,” and someone can reply, “I have five kids!” But all this is going to change. He can’t help feeling grateful as he looks at his spacious home and sees many children playing and fighting in it. He can see himself teaching his boys to play ball and to ride bicycles. He feels as if he is a new person as he enters through the front door, until he remembers that Nomsa will be mad at him for not coming back from work on time. He suffers a little pang of fear as he notices that his wife is not only cleaning the house, but she is sweating as she cleans.
4
Nomsa arrives home at exactly half past four in the afternoon and expects to find her husband home as usual. She expects him to welcome her in with a kiss and then ask her if he can make her a cup of coffee. This is almost a habit now. A good one, at that. She braces herself for the love her husband will pour on her and is greatly disappointed when she realises there is nobody home. Her husband has left school and gone to only God knows where. Anywhere but home!
She tries to recall if he told her of any meeting that might cause him to be late, but he told her nothing. A thought says, “Maybe something he had not planned for came up.” Another negates it soon after, reminding her that Bongani knows the number at her office and he also has her mobile phone number.
Thinking of phones, when last did Bongani call her at work and tell her that he loves her so much, he wishes the day was over so he could go home to her, or she could come home to him? The answer to that question, which is “not lately”, makes Nomsa breathe faster. She thinks about her age and decides that, at thirty-nine, she is not getting any younger. How many stories has she heard of teachers, especially principals, having affairs with girls in their schools? She gazes at the dressing-table mirror and does not like what she sees. Is she fat? “Not that much!” is the answer, and it is not too bad. Is she uglier than she used to be? She cannot enunciate a resounding “no” to this question, and wonders how many times Bongani has asked the same question. She decides she does not want to know the answer.
“The short swine is having an affair!” she announces to the room, and some unknown force makes her look again in the mirror. This time she displays her teeth and shoves her tongue through the gap and makes some odd noise as she forces air through it. That having been accomplished, she says, “Shi!”, which she always says when she is displeased, and then starts to move about in the room. Her mind gallops as she tries to reach the woman who wants to take her man and make her a laughing stock. Perhaps it is someone she knows. Perhaps it is not. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that Bongani has something going on and he has betrayed himself today.
“Son of a bitch!” she yells at his photograph, and suddenly goes to look at the clock on the sideboard and sees with much distress that it is five minutes to five. Bongani could not have left school later than three. Maybe he did not go there at all? The thought of him spending the whole day with a young schoolgirl
makes her want to scream. “I will kill him! I will kill him! I will kill him!” she sings.
It is as if she has gone mad. She makes some inaudible noise and breaks open Bongani’s wardrobe, although the key is just in front of her. She removes all the things she can in the frenzy of her anger. She descends the stairs at a run, taking them two at a time, as if trying to make sure that nobody can stop her. She uses the back door to the little garden and makes a bonfire out of the items she is carrying. She is not a fool for Bongani to humiliate. What she has done to his clothes is nothing compared to what she is yet to do to the man himself.
It soon becomes clear to Nomsa that burning Bongani’s things does not quench her anger as it has always done in the past. If only he would arrive so that she can teach him a lesson. She feels that the anger inside her is too much, and decides to call on her second anger-countering strategy: cleaning! She goes inside and performs what she calls “thorough cleaning”. She works hard and fast so that she can sweat out the anger.
She has turned all the living-room furniture upside down when she hears Bongani’s garage door open. She stops her cleaning and watches Bongani touch and caress a young girl in a blue skirt. The sight prompts her to balance the broom on her shoulder and then to hold her hair up with both hands, as if trying to take off and fly.
When Bongani finally comes in, Nomsa has already failed to stop herself from crying. She sees his trousers covered in dust and grass and screams so powerfully that the house seems to vibrate. She charges towards him with the broom and Bongani is taken by surprise. He is still thinking about his vision and his resolution to demand his manly right, so it takes some time for him to make sense of what is going on.
Nomsa is a powerfully built woman and always prides herself on being two inches taller than her husband. Both these qualities count in her favour now. Her anger affords her the power she never thought she possessed and she uses it efficiently. Bongani tries to take it like a man but soon accepts that Nomsa is a strong woman and she has a broomstick while he has nothing. He tries to parry her attacks with his hands, but they soon feel so hurt that he decides to stop protecting himself with them.
“Awe malo!” he screams. “I promise I won’t do it again!”
It isn’t easy to speak and be beaten at the same time, but he does a good job. Nomsa only realises what she is doing when she hears Bongani ask for forgiveness and she thinks she sees blood leaking from his head. Now Nomsa cries, not out of anger, but out of fear for what she has done and out of what feels like love for the man she has just beaten. She throws away the broom, lest she beats him again, and tries to touch him. But then she sees the blood. She isn’t afraid of blood, and there is not a large quantity of it, but somehow she feels as if touching him would cause more harm.
“But why, Bongani?” she manages to say. Then, having assured herself that he is not going to break in her hands, she tries to help him up.
Bongani is still confused. He wishes he would wake up from this nightmare, but he does not. Is this another dream or vision? No! If it was it wouldn’t hurt this much. The fact is that his wife has beaten him. The good thing is that, although he certainly knows his wife is strong enough to beat him anyway, it consoles him that she has taken him by surprise.
“Why didn’t you warn me that you were on the attack?”
Nomsa hears but cannot answer. She hurriedly goes to the bathroom, leaving Bongani on the misplaced sofa. She pours water in the basin and, as it is still pouring, she shakily searches the cabinet for Dettol or anything that she might use. As things fall from the cabinet, she suddenly recalls that there is a clinic nearby and stops the tap at once and runs for the living room.
“Let me take you to the clinic,” she offers, and it feels pleasant that she can still think of something so helpful under such pressure.
Nomsa’s words sound to Bongani as if she wants to display to the whole clinic community that she has beaten her husband. “No ways! I’m not going there. I’m fine.”
“No, Bongani, you are not! Let me take you to the clinic so that they will stitch your head.”
“Let me take you to the clinic so that everybody will see that I beat you up!” is what Bongani hears. “Hell, no!” he shouts. “I said I’m fine. I’m okay, okay?”
“All right.” Nomsa is calmer now. “Please don’t shout. I was just trying to help.” She begins to cry again. Only now does she consider her reason for beating her husband. “Where were you, Bongani?” She wipes her tears with her left hand and looks closely at him.
“You should have asked that before you did this to me,” Bongani contemplates his hands as he speaks and is frightened when he sees how swollen they are. “What difference will it make now? Hhe?”
“I said I’m sorry, Bongani. But I need to know why you did not come home to me. Why, Bongani?”
Nomsa seats herself next to him and it angers her that she is begging a man. She again sees blood on his head and she feels that she really loves him. Now she thinks about losing him and it makes her mind and body weak. Life would be sour without him. Where in this crazy patriarchal world would she find a husband as understanding as Bongani, who is able to bear with her unwillingness to have children?
“I’m serious, Bongani. Where were you all the time after you left school?” Nomsa is softer now, but she still speaks in a worried tone. Bongani is touched, but he does not want to answer her. Where was he anyway?
“Do you have a girlfriend, Bongani?”
Bongani tries without success to stop himself from laughing. “What do you say? Is that a joke?”
Before they go to bed, Nomsa has long forgotten about the “little incident”, as she now thinks of her beating of Bongani. He pretends that it is all over for him too. But, as Nomsa relates to him how her meeting that afternoon went, he keeps reliving the pain and confusion he felt when she beat him. Thanks to his role-playing ability, she is honestly convinced and gratified that her husband has not only forgiven her, but has completely forgotten about the beating.
“Remember that we African women were doubly oppressed,” she says about the meeting. “We were oppressed as black people and also oppressed as women. Now we have attained our freedom as blacks, but our struggle as women continues.” She takes a heavy, long breath. “And we intend to win!”
Suddenly she leaves the room as if she fears something deadly is lurking. Bongani thinks about the days when he was growing up. His mother told him that if he was in the room with the cat and there was thunder and lightning, if the cat dashes out of the room he should follow it. It means there is danger. Now he smiles as he decides that if there was lightning and Nomsa was the cat, he would not follow her. He is not young any more. But he knows that his wife left because she is on the verge of crying. It amazes him how Nomsa is so touched by the cause of women. Every time they speak about the plight of women, she changes dramatically, getting more fearsome to Bongani.
“I wonder why she hates men so much?” he asks himself.
5
Priest knows that his wife is not absolutely wrong to consider the possibility of seeking work at the farm. It has become clear that he is unlikely to get a job anywhere else. Many people disapprove of farm work because of meagre wages and bad conditions there. “But things have changed now,” he thinks. “Apartheid is gone and workers, including farm workers, have rights.” But new laws or old ones, this is not the kind of work for a man as respectable as he is. Hasn’t he been degraded enough? Even his priest’s garb, the only suit he has left, is now threadbare. His shoes? He might as well have none, so worn are they.
His wife keeps pestering him about making a smart decision. Though the only smart decision to her mind is for Priest to decide to go to work at the farm.
“How much do you think Mr Johnson is going to pay us, or let me say, those who will work for him?” Priest asks her. He is beginning to give in to her persuasion. There is nothing very bright about farm work, but he tries to think positively about the money and
the prospect of earning something, anything.
MaDuma realises she is winning him over. She is smart enough to understand that if she tells him the truth, he may be discouraged. So she almost doubles the money that she heard will be paid to tree workers: “It’s not that bad. R30 per day.”
Having received the answer, Priest looks fixedly at one spot, not winking or blinking. Then he says, “It’s about six hundred a month. It’s indeed worth a try. It’s better than having to go begging.”
“I’m glad you see that, Father. We and our children will not starve like this if you work there,” MaDuma says with a sense of satisfaction. She has won her womanly battle of convincing the man to do the right thing.
Priest finally agrees that he will try his luck at the farm on Monday. During the weekend he spends a lot of time considering the decision he has made. He thinks that, despite everything, he has taken the right path. He thinks about the things he can do with R600 and realises how limited they are. But he will be staying at home, not having to pay for transport like he had to do when he was working at the bacon factory.
In the sermon on Sunday, he preaches about the importance of taking responsibility. This means doing all people can in order to fulfil their duties, no matter how much sacrifice is involved. He makes an example of the present situation where many people are without jobs, thus rendered unable to support their families and themselves.
“But if you wait and listen, if you keep quiet and think deeply, you will see that there is so much we can do. We should stop thinking too much about our grandeur and power, and consider what options we’ve got.” He pauses for a moment and then continues, “Who can tell me that they have tried to seek work at the farms and were unsuccessful?”
Hunger Eats a Man Page 3