MaDuma cannot hide her anger as she finally arrives home. Priest sees, when she is close enough, that she has been crying. But MaDuma is not really crying for failing to get the potatoes. Priest knows his wife very well. She is crying because she has made a fool of herself.
This is bad indeed. Priest feels sorry for his wife, but there is nothing he can do. He stands outside for another hour, afraid to go inside and face her. As he stands there thinking about how things have changed for the worse when everybody thought they would change for the better, he sees two young boys of about eleven or twelve carrying around two kilograms of potatoes each. They must have followed the tractor to Mswane. Now they are not running; instead they are striding fast. Priest, like everybody who sees the boys, need not be told that the boys are happy.
“Who knows,” Priest thinks, “maybe they did not have food this whole day. Or they ate pap without anything to help it down their throats.” Priest thinks of the woman who passed here laughing and hopes that the children are hers. “That might stop her from laughing.”
He smiles and goes inside.
After fourteen months the workers finish planting the number of trees Johnson wants. Priest, and many others, soon resume the title of being unemployed. All the months they have toiled at the farm comprised extreme suffering and torture to their bones and muscles. It became a little better when they started the actual planting, although the money was reduced. But now all is gone.
Things soon return to what they were. Although there was not a great difference while he was working at the farm, the family has been able to buy enough maize to see them through the month. Priest’s children have known hunger for a long time now, yet they cannot get used to it. It is like death. Every time it hits is as bad as the first. But at least they are used to eating bad food.
“Mother sent me to ask for maize meal,” a young girl says as Priest and his wife are seated in their living room, not talking to each other. As things have changed from bad to worse, the two parents find it hard to engage in a conversation without it ending in a fight.
As the young girl speaks, MaDuma looks askance at Priest, who, having heard the question, utters a big, “NO.”
“Tell your mother we are sorry, we have no maize meal,” MaDuma says sternly. “Father is not working at the farm any more, in case she has forgotten. We have nothing.”
MaDuma is losing her temper speedily. How can anybody ask from them in times like this when everybody has to hold on to the little they have?
The girl waits a little while, hoping to hear one of them remember that just this morning MaDuma bought 12.5 kilograms of maize meal. But, contrary to what the girl hopes, Priest earnestly confirms what his wife has said. “Tell your mother we are sorry that we cannot help her. Life is hard these days.”
As the girl opens the door to leave, Priest decides to offer her some soothing words instead of the maize meal. “Tell your mother not to forget that God loves us, and He sees us.”
The girl is annoyed by what Priest tells her after having just lied to her. “No Father, that is not true. There is no God.”
The girl’s words move Priest. Before he can find the words to refurnish the girl with her lost faith, she closes the door and leaves.
As soon as the girl is gone, Priest and MaDuma go to the kitchen where their maize is. They do not tell each other where they are going, so they only realise they are heading for the same place once they have arrived. The woman arrives first, and is very relieved to see their maize safe and sound. She opens the bag and says, “They are playing. They will not get you.” MaDuma closes the paper bag and leaves, allowing Priest to utter his reassuring words to the maize meal.
But Priest does not go to the bag of maize meal with reassuring words in mind. He goes there with something different. He knows that no matter how much they save, their maize will sooner or later be finished. The bag of maize meal was opened this morning when MaDuma prepared the family something in between breakfast and lunch. This means it has been used once, but what Priest sees disturbs him so much that he forgets his rank in society.
“Dogs!” he curses. “The lazy dogs have no understanding of fullness. They are cheating us.” Priest closes the bag angrily and leaves. He cannot believe this! These people are reducing the content in the bags while they increase prices.
When he arrives in the living room, he sees a figure distinct with anger standing next to the door. The figure is a woman’s and she happens to be MakaNozipho, the mother of the girl who has just come to ask for maize meal. Priest is stupefied.
“I sent my daughter to ask for maize meal but she came back empty-handed,” the figure speaks, trying in vain to look at both MaDuma and Priest at the same time. Failing this, she resorts to looking at them alternately. Priest and MaDuma do not know what to say, so they decide to keep quiet, allowing MakaNozipho a chance to continue. “I came to ask why that happened.”
“We told her we have no maize meal,” MaDuma says, as if having no maize meal is something to be proud of. She looks for confirmation from her husband, who gives it without hesitation.
MakaNozipho’s face becomes darker when she hears another pair of lies directed at her ears. Priest only now notices that MakaNozipho has a large nose. It is moving up and down as if it has a life of its own. “You are lying!” she bursts out in anger. “You do have maize meal. You,” she points a finger at MaDuma, “I saw you coming with it from Yizo-Yizo. You have it.”
Priest and MaDuma look at each other in disbelief. MaDuma tried to avoid being seen in the morning, but she has certainly failed. She decides to say something quickly, lest her husband make a mistake. “Yes, it is true. You did see me come from Yizo-Yizo with maize meal. But it came when we owed so many people their maize that it got finished when we paid them back.”
MaDuma looks at Priest, who feels obliged to nod approval and sends another surreptitious glance at MakaNozipho.
“You are lying!” MakaNozipho accuses again.
“I think it’s time for you to leave our house,” MaDuma shouts. “You have no right to come here and accuse us of lying. What we are telling you is true. So go!”
MakaNozipho does not move. MaDuma looks around for any object she may use if she needs force in order to get rid of this woman.
Instead of leaving, MakaNozipho speaks again. “You say you paid other people their maize meal. What about my own you borrowed when Priest had not even started working at the farm?”
Priest and his wife are very shocked when they hear this. Two years? They look at each other and then face MakaNozipho with the same question. MakaNozipho repeats herself in the same words but louder.
MaDuma gets angrier now. “This woman has come to rob us of our maize meal and I will not let that happen.” She starts to sweat and breathe heavily. “From now on there will be no helping each other with maize meal, or anything for that matter. In times like this, the teachings of the Bible only count in the church, not outside.”
She stops to regain her strength while Priest and MakaNozipho look at her, shocked.
“Jesus did not know that it would come to this, otherwise he wouldn’t have said one should love one’s neighbour as much as one loves oneself.” Now MaDuma might cry at any minute. She is angry, confused and sorry. All in one. “No one can afford to love her neighbour these days. Not even half as much as she loves herself.”
Priest looks at his wife and sees somebody he does not know. She never was a very kind person, but she has also never been like this. What has hunger done to his wife? Priest looks at MakaNozipho and sees that she, too, is shocked. All this time all the neighbouring families have shared in their suffering and want. Now everyone is on their own.
“Okay then,” MakaNozipho starts in a calm voice, “you eat your maize meal forever. There will be no helping each other from now on.” She bangs the door and leaves.
14
It is now five weeks after the cutting off of Muntukabani’s testicles and three weeks after t
he same operation was performed on Dlamini. Nomsa cannot get either of these incidents out of her mind. Dlamini’s case is difficult because he tried to fight and the Grinding Stone beat him severely before removing his genitals. The mutilation of the men affected Nomsa so much that now she cannot look at a man’s trousers, especially the zip, without envisioning the blood that came out of both these men. She sees Muntukabani’s penis becoming tumescent and then falling forever. She feels her scalp tingle when this happens and tries hard to remind herself that what they did was right. They are speaking for the women who cannot speak for themselves and they are using the only language men understand – violence.
Nomsa is grateful that she has a very good man who understands her. Who does not beat or abuse her because of her attitude towards pregnancy and sex.
It is a hot October Sunday and Nomsa opens the fridge to get some juice. She is so shocked by what she sees that she thinks she may be hallucinating. Inside the fridge are fifteen pairs of bulls’ testicles arranged in three rows of five each. She feels a superstitious fear grip her as she notices that all the white balls are in the top row and the blacks in the middle, while the reds are at the bottom. Her first response to the sight is that it must have something to do with the cutting of Muntukabani’s and Dlamini’s genitals. Again, Muntukabani’s penis hardens and she tries hard not to scream.
It is her helper, Ntombi, who saves her by telling Nomsa that she has seen for herself Bongani coming in with the plastic bag full of “them” and putting them in the fridge.
“Oh my God! He is mad!” Nomsa says, and holds her mouth with the palm of her left hand. “What was he thinking, bringing this dirt to my house? My fridge?”
“It’s hard to tell. But he looked very pleased as he kept arranging and rearranging them.”
Nomsa’s mouth is open as she listens.
“I heard him talk to himself about the joys of fatherhood and I asked him what he meant by that and he said it was so nice a book that I should read it.”
“I can’t believe this!” Nomsa does not know what to think. It is better that no ghost has brought these testicles, but knowing that Bongani has done it worries her. The only explanation for it is that he is mad, and she thinks about having a mad husband and decides that it is not a good thing. “He is mad!” she says again, as if saying it can reverse the condition.
“At least,” Ntombi offers, “he sounded very happy. I have never seen him this happy before.”
“Where is he?” Anger and fear are mingled in Nomsa’s voice.
“In the toilet,” Ntombi says, with a mouth full of a muffin she is eating with coffee, in spite of the heat.
“I’ve just been to the toilet and he is not there,” Nomsa protests. Ntombi takes a few seconds swallowing before she answers, “He said he will use the outside one because there is no privacy inside.” Ntombi takes a sip of her coffee.
“He said what?” Nomsa does not await a reply. As she briskly strides outside, she opens her mouth and Ntombi notices her tongue moving in and out of the gap. She thanks God that Nomsa is not angry at her.
The toilet to which Nomsa is going is just a few metres from the house. It is very old but in a useable condition. It was erected many years ago when this home was built for some white family, but it has not been used since the Hadebe family was renting out the two outbuilding rooms. When they got so rich that they could build a double-storey and demolish the outbuilding, they kept the toilet to use in times of emergency, like when they have some function that brings many people together. This toilet is always locked, but Ntombi has been instructed to clean it at least once a month.
When Nomsa is close to the toilet, she remembers that a madman cannot be trusted, so she takes two steps back before she shouts, “Bongani, are you there?”
Instead of getting an answer, she hears Bongani groaning inside, “Oh my mother! Is that silly herbalist trying to kill me? Ohhh! Ouch! Awe malo!”
Nomsa waits for a few moments trying to hear what Bongani is saying, but her confusion dulls her ears. “Bongani, are you all right?”
Only now does Bongani hear her and cries loudly, “Ohhh! Leave me alone!”
Nomsa again asks what his problem is.
“It’s beans!” Bongani is still in pain as he speaks.
Nomsa is completely lost as to what Bongani is talking about. She pushes the door forcibly and kicks it when she finds it locked. “What is wrong, Bongani? Open this door! Now!”
“It’s beans. Oooo! Leave me alone, beans!”
When she hears this, Nomsa thinks her husband has been poisoned, and for a moment she forgets her anger about the bulls’ testicles in her fridge and rushes to the garage in fright to start the car and take her husband to the hospital. She shouts at Ntombi to come and assist her quickly. It is better to have a poisoned husband than a mad one.
As Nomsa runs to get the car, Bongani is groaning and cursing Sgonyela. Then he hears his wife and Ntombi coming and starts groaning again, “Leave me alone, beans!”
“Where did you eat, Bongani?”
“At Zwelakhe’s. Hmmn!” Bongani says without thinking. It is as if he has anticipated her.
“But I told you that they hate you, those people. Look now!”
Bongani drags himself out of the toilet and Nomsa and Ntombi help him to the car.
When they are about to reach the Central Hospital, Bongani is no longer groaning as much. Nomsa takes the opportunity to ask him why in hell did he bring “those” things to her house.
“What are testicles for?” Bongani answers. “There is only one biological function of testicles that I know of: to create something which, if pumped into something, creates something that I want.”
“You are mad!” Nomsa yells at Bongani, and for a moment she forgets that she is driving and almost loses control of the car. “Would you stop talking in parables and answer my question?”
But then they arrive at the hospital and the matter is put aside for a moment. Nomsa makes arrangements with the nurses and clerks – many of whom live in Canaan and respect them – to let Bongani see the doctor before the people already waiting for the doctor to arrive. Because it is a Sunday, the doctor only comes when she has been called. The wait will be long, and Nomsa is in no mood for her mad husband, so she leaves him sitting on the bench, telling him to call her when he is done.
When the doctor finally arrives at quarter to twelve, Bongani is called to see her first. The other patients protest, but the nurse tells them that Bongani phoned early in the morning to make an appointment. He is indeed a VIP and is unlike them, who simply brought their big foreheads to the hospital without making an appointment.
Bongani does not know the name of his doctor and no one tells him, so he decides that she is a Chinese woman as young or as old as he is. When she asks him what his problem is, the best Bongani can say is, “It’s beans.”
For a while the doctor thinks maybe it is her poor English that makes her misunderstand or be misunderstood by Bongani. It is when she looks at the nurse and sees her smiling that she realises the problem may be with the answering, not her question.
“What I’m trying to say is, ‘Where is the pain?’” she tries again.
“It’s here,” Bongani points to his posterior.
When he tells her this, the doctor takes a pen and hurriedly scribbles in Bongani’s file. It is her day off, but she has many patients to see and so she is in a rush. “I think you have piles, Mr Hadebe. Take this to the dispensary and they will give you pills and painkillers. If that does not work, you will have to be operated on to have them removed.”
As he stands up to leave, Bongani feels some strange movement in his anus. “Oh! My mother! They are starting again!” he tells the waiting patients and the walls of Out-patient Department.
He drags himself to the hall where the window to the dispensary is and seats himself in the queue. The ailment is not new to him. He started suffering from piles as a very young boy. He smiles as he recalls
that he felt so special when he knew that he had an anus that nobody else had. He used to stoop, display his anus and push. When he did this, something came out from within and it was that which the people viewed and were pleased by. Not a day passed when Bongani was not asked to show his anus. Many times he even got paid for it. “Show us your anus, Bongani!” they used to say.
It was in the 1980s when he was in high school that he came to know the piles for what they were – painful and bleeding intruders. They almost killed him. He made an observation concerning them: The intruders were Satan’s disease that could breathe on their own.
“Oh God, I am going to be lean again!” he laments aloud, and the man who is next to him laughs.
When he has finally got his prescriptions, he calls Nomsa from his cell phone to come and fetch him. He then moves slowly outside to wait for her. On the way out is a shop where he buys The Eye of People. He knows that Nomsa will not come right away, but will make a point of taking her time.
As he comes out of the gates, two boys run to him and tell him that if he is going to town, he should use the car that each is pointing to.
“No. Someone is coming to fetch me! Thanks.”
“Shit!” one of the boys curses and leaves as the driver of the car hoots for him. The other goes inside to get two people who are coming from the hospital.
Bongani sits and reads without making any sense of what the stories he is reading are about. His mind is troubled that the disease from hell has attacked him again. It is on page three that he finds a face that catches his attention. Although at first he cannot place the man with a big head full of pimples, he soon sees that it is a man he has visited twice in a month and that the man is Sgonyela. It angers him that the medicine from this man whose photo is in front of him has caused the return of his disease from hell.
His anger increases when he reads that Sgonyela has been arrested in connection with the murder of an old man who lived somewhere around Manakanaka. The article continues that Sgonyela is also under investigation for other related crimes, such as killing people for body parts. The reporter suggests that these body parts are allegedly used by the popular herbalist to make medicine for many of his clients’ needs.
Hunger Eats a Man Page 10