The Heart of Redness: A Novel

by Mda, Zakes

  “You must have loved it,” says Camagu.

  “It is the best country in the world. I hope to go back one day. You are lucky to be going there. I envy you. Are you going for a course—or a conference maybe?”

  “No. I am going to work. I can’t find a job in South Africa.”

  She is amazed by his temerity to think that he can just fly to a great country like America and find employment when he can’t even find it in South Africa.

  “What makes you think you’ll find a job in America?”

  “Well, I have worked there before. I have a good track record with the organization I worked for.”

  There is a hint of anger in her eyes.

  “You’ve been in America before?”

  “I lived there for thirty years. Practically grew up there. I went there as a teenager.”

  Now she is really angry. Her colleagues are enjoying this, although they are discreet in their glee, lest they be on the receiving end of her displeasure. Camagu is uncomfortable. He does not know how he can show her that he had no intention of embarrassing her in front of her colleagues. Her subordinates, in fact.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask me, miss!”

  “I am not miss! My name is Xoliswa.”

  “Ximiya,” adds Vathiswa.

  She decides that she is now going to ignore Camagu and focus on her other guests, who are arguing aloud about the new developments in the village. Camagu can only catch snippets of the discussion. Apparently a big company that owns hotels throughout southern Africa wants to build a casino on the Gxarha River mouth. They want to introduce water sports in the great lagoon. Tourists will come from all over the world to gamble and to play with their boats and surfboards. At last Qolorha-by-Sea will see progress. But it seems some people in the village are against these developments.

  Vathiswa either is out of her depth in this discussion or feels sorry for the stranger who has been left out. She moves closer to him and asks what he studied in America.

  “A doctoral degree in communication and economic development,” he says, wondering if that will make any sense to her.

  “I wish I were you. Maybe you should put me in your suitcase when you fly to America. I want to see all the wonderful things that Xoliswa Ximiya talks about.”

  Camagu whispers in her ear, “Take everything with a pinch of salt. Her adulation of the place must not mislead you. There is nothing wonderful about America. Unless you think racial prejudice and bullyboy tactics towards other countries are wonderful.”

  But she is no longer listening. She is giggling. She finds his whispering in her ear rather ticklish. And flirtatious. Perhaps greater things will come out of it.

  She tells him about herself. She worked as a nurse in Queenstown. But unfortunately she had a fall.

  “A fall?”

  “I fell pregnant. At the time they did not allow unmarried nurses to have babies. I then went to model clothes for Mahomedy’s in Durban. I was featured in their catalogues.”

  Now she works as a receptionist at the Blue Flamingo Hotel. Camagu remembers seeing her at the hotel and marveling at her outrageous outfit, which was the height of fashion ten years ago. He wonders why Xoliswa Ximiya does not give her a few tips. After all, what are friends for? Or could it be that the erstwhile catalogue model is all right as she is since she makes Xoliswa Ximiya’s flame shine even brighter?

  It does not escape Camagu that although Xoliswa Ximiya is ostensibly ignoring him she is furtively listening to his conversation with Vathiswa. When she observes that things may be getting too cozy between them, she makes up her mind that a man who can just fly to America to work there is too important to ignore. He is more of her class than of Vathiswa’s, anyway. He is a kindred spirit, because both of them have lived in the land of the free and the brave.

  She draws him into the debate about the developers.

  “This is a lifetime opportunity for Qolorha to be like some of the holiday resorts in America. To have big stars like Eddie Murphy and Dolly Parton come here for holiday.”

  “That would be nice,” says Camagu without much enthusiasm.

  “They go to Cape Town, you know. Cape Town is now becoming a celebrity paradise. Qolorha can be one too if these conservative villagers stop standing in the way of progress. Don’t you think so?”

  “I don’t know the issues. But I am sure you’re right.”

  “Of course I am right. You have seen how backward this place is. We cannot stop civilization just because some sentimental old fools want to preserve birds and trees and an outmoded way of life.”

  He learns that the leader of those who oppose progress is one Zim, a Believer to the core of his soul. What is sad is that he has now been joined by John Dalton, the white trader. Are whites not the bearers of civilization and progress? Then why is Dalton standing with the unenlightened villagers to oppose such an important development that will bring jobs, streetlights, and other forms of modernization to this village?

  Vathiswa has something to say about that. Dalton is only white outside. Inside he is a raw umXhosa who still lives in darkness.

  “That is why,” she adds, “every weekend he takes white tourists in his four-wheel-drive bakkie to show them Nongqawuse’s Pool. Why would civilized people want to honor a foolish girl who killed the amaXhosa nation?”

  Xoliswa Ximiya freezes at the mere mention of Nongqawuse’s name. There is a very strong anti-Nongqawuse sentiment around the table.

  “Those people—why can’t they let that part of our shame rest in peace?” she asks pleadingly.

  Another teacher has a different view of Dalton’s motives.

  “He is just like all the other selfish white people. Especially those who have built sea cottages along our coastline,” he says. “Do you think they care about this community? No. They are here for their own selfish reasons. They have nothing to do with this community. They just come here in summer to have fun in the sea, then leave for East London or other cities where they come from.”

  “But that’s unfair,” says another man. “Dalton belongs in this community. He lives here permanently. So have his fathers before him. He was at the same circumcision school as my elder brother. He is the man who has organized the village water-supply project. He has nothing in common with the cottage owners.”

  Camagu is curious about the cottage owners. The land in the rural villages is not for sale. It is given to the residents by the chief and his land-allocation committees. How do the cottage owners get the land to build here?

  This is a sore point with some villagers, he is told. The white people—and some well-to-do blacks from the old Transkei bantustan—bribe Chief Xikixa with a bottle of brandy, and he gives them the land.

  “At first it was a bottle of brandy,” the history teacher corrects his colleague. “But now the stakes have gone up. Competition for prime land by the sea has intensified. The white folks now bribe the chief with cellphones and satellite dishes. Haven’t you heard? The chief has even named one of his daughters NoCellphone. His wife is pregnant. If the baby is a boy he will be named Satellite. A girl will obviously be NoSatellite.”

  It is illegal to build within a kilometer of the coast. But the cottage owners don’t observe that. Most cottages are right on the seashore.

  The landscape has changed already. The Unbelievers say it is a good thing, though, because the cottage owners give employment to the local men who wash their cars and to local women who work as maids. None of the men get jobs as gardeners, though, since most cottage owners keep wild gardens planned by landscape artists from East London, and these need no maintenance.

  The history teacher says that progress is in the eye of the beholder. He remembers one day when the Minister of Health came to the village to address an imbhizo—a public meeting—about family planning. The minister’s emphasis was on the necessity to limit the number of children to three.

  An old man asked the minister, “Now, you te
ll me, my child, how many are you in your family?”

  “Eight,” said the minister. “But those were the olden days. Things were different then.”

  “That’s not what I am talking about. You say you are eight. What number are you among these eight children?”

  “I am the seventh.”

  “Now tell me, where would you be if your parents had taken the advice you are giving us today?”

  The imbhizo never forgot how the old man put the minister in his place.

  The table laughs, except for Xoliswa Ximiya, who snarls, “The minister was foolish. Today we don’t talk of limiting the number of children. We talk of spacing them properly.”

  “In any case,” says a puny man who has been quiet all along, “that story of the Minister of Health—it did not happen in this village. It’s an old joke. I read it somewhere.”

  The history teacher is offended.

  “Cooks read too, do they?” he asks.

  “I am not a cook.”

  “Since when? As far as we all know you cook for white people at the Blue Flamingo Hotel.”

  “I am a chef, not a cook.”

  “What’s the difference? You cook, so you’re a cook.”

  “You call me a cook again and I’ll show you your mother!”

  The history teacher is jumping up and down, dancing around the table, shouting, “Cook! Cook! Cook!”

  No one knows when the chef got the stick. Like lightning he hits the history teacher on the head. Blood springs out like water from a burst pipe. He falls down. Soon there is a long red stream on the floor. There is commotion. People hold the chef and try to stop him from inflicting further damage on the unconscious history teacher. Xoliswa Ximiya is more concerned with what the visitor from Johannesburg will think of them, behaving like savages in her father’s house. She takes Camagu by the hand and leads him outside.

  “I am sorry you had to see our worst side,” she says.

  “It is all right,” replies Camagu, trying to make light of the matter. “I have learned a good lesson: never call a chef a cook.”

  He laughs. She maintains her stern expression.

  “Anyway, I must be on my way. But please, can I see you again?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I am free in the afternoon.”

  In a clearing in front of the pink rondavel, women’s upper bodies are vibrating in the umngqungqo dance. Bhonco is joking with the men under the umsintsi tree. He sees Camagu walking away and calls him back.

  “Hey, teacher, are you just going to disappear like a fart in the wind, without even saying good-bye?” shouts Bhonco.

  “Oh, Tat’uBhonco, I am sorry. I did not see you,” says Camagu.

  “Did those children expel you so early? The feast is still young.”

  “I have enjoyed myself, thank you. They entertained me enough.”

  “With fights? A woman came wailing that the teachers were fighting. I told her to leave us alone to enjoy our beer in peace. The learned ones always fight when they are drunk. What was it all about?”

  “I do not know. It started with the discussion about the developers.”

  “The developers are still going to cause more fights in this village!”

  He is passionate about development. His wrath is directed at the Believers who are bent on opposing everything that is meant to improve the lives of the people of Qolorha.

  “They want us to remain in our wildness!” says the elder. “To remain red all our lives! To stay in the darkness of redness!”

  The Unbelievers are moving forward with the times. That is why they support the casino and the water-sports paradise that the developers want to build. The Unbelievers stand for civilization. To prove this point Bhonco has now turned away from beads and has decided to take out the suits that his daughter bought him many years ago from his trunk under the bed. From now on he will be seen only in suits. He is in the process of persuading his wife also to do away with the red ochre that women smear on their bodies and with which they also dye their isikhakha skirts. When the villagers talk of the redness of unenlightenment they are referring to the red ochre. But then even the isikhakha skirt itself represents backwardness. NoPetticoat must do away with this prided isiXhosa costume. But she is a stubborn woman. Although she is a strong Unbeliever like her husband, she is sold on the traditional fashions of the amaXhosa. But Bhonco is a suit man. He even cried when he saw his beautiful reflection in one of the big windows of Vulindlela Trading Store. In any case, these suits were lovingly bought by his daughter, and it makes her very happy when he wears them.

  Camagu wonders why the Believers are so bent on opposing development that seems to be of benefit to everyone in the village.

  “It is just madness,” shouts Bhonco. “Madness has seeped into their heads. And that John Dalton whose father was my age-mate, that John Dalton is misleading the nation. Now they want to enforce a ban on killing birds. Have you ever heard of such a thing? In the veld and in the forests, boys trap birds and roast them in ant-heap ovens. That is our way. We all grew up that way. Now when boys kill birds, are Dalton and his Believer cronies going to take them to jail? I’ll tell you one thing: it is all the fault of Nongqawuse!”

  At night Camagu becomes the river again, and NomaRussia flows on him. Yet she remains elusive. So does the dream. It refuses to bearrested. But it keeps on coming back. Until the birds and the waves and the monkeys and the wind tell him it’s time to get out of bed. He defies them and sleeps until midday.

  After a fulfilling lunch he goes back to Bhonco’s homestead. He is met by NoPetticoat, who is talking in whispers. He whispers back that he has come to see Xoliswa Ximiya.

  “Xoliswa does not live here,” she whispers. “She has her own house at the school.”

  “Thank you, mama. But why are we whispering?”

  She tells him that there is a meeting in progress. The elders of the Unbelievers are sorting out a few problems before they engage in their rituals.

  Under the umsintsi tree a motley group of men are sitting and drinking beer. Some are wearing traditional isiXhosa clothes while others are in various western gear ranging from blue denim overalls and gumboots to Bhonco’s crinkled suit and tie.

  Bhonco sees Camagu and assumes that he is there to visit him. He beckons him to join the elders. Timidly Camagu approaches them, and apologizes for disturbing the old ones in their deliberations.

  “Let the young man sit down. He will talk with Bhonco when we have finished upbraiding him,” says a grave elder.

  Camagu has no choice but to sit down. He cannot tell them now that he has not come to see Bhonco, but his daughter. It will be considered rude and disrespectful if he answers back after receiving such firm instructions to sit down. Even though he has spent so many years in foreign lands, he remembers the culture of his people very well.

  Bhonco, son of Ximiya, is being admonished by his peers.

  “We do not complain if this son of Ximiya cries for beautiful things,” says the grave one. “But he must not betray us by refusing to join us in our grief for the folly of belief that racked our country and is felt even today. He is a carrier of the scars. They will live on his body forever. He has no first son to carry them when he dies, but that is another matter. The ancestors will decide about that. Maybe the scars will be passed to another family of Unbelievers. But that is not what I am talking about now. I am saying that this son of Ximiya must grieve. This descendant of the headless one must lament.”

  Various elders make their speeches in the same vein. Bhonco is shamefaced. The words of his peers reach deep inside him. His response is one long sharp wail. It is the howl of a mountain dog when the moon is full. Camagu suddenly feels a tinge of sadness.

  In a slow rhythm the elders begin to dance. It is a painful dance. One can see the pain on their faces as they lift their limbs and stamp them on the ground. They are all wailing now, and mumbling things like people who talk in tongues. But th
ey are not talking in tongues in the way that Christians do. They are going into a trance that takes them back to the past. To the world of the ancestors. Not the Otherworld where the ancestors live today. Not the world that lives parallel to our world. But to this world when it still belonged to them. When they were still people of flesh and blood like the people who walk the world today.

  Like the abaThwa people—those who were disparagingly called the San by the Khoikhoi because to the Khoikhoi everyone who was a wanderer and didn’t have cattle was a San—the elders seem to induce death through their dance. When they are dead they visit the world of the ancestors. When the trance is over they rejoin the world of the living. Only the elders do not die to the Otherworld but to the world of the past.

  Camagu is not only filled with deep sorrow, he is also filled with fear. He tries to steal away when the elders are dead in their trance. As he tiptoes past the pink rondavel he almost falls on NoPetticoat, who is busy washing a gigantic three-legged cast-iron pot.

  “You don’t have to steal away like a thief in the night,” she says with a smile.

  “I am scared. I have never seen anything like this before.”

  “There is nothing to be afraid of. They are merely inducing sadness in their lives, so that they may have a greater appreciation of happiness.”

  “I have never heard of this custom before among the amaXhosa.”

  “It is not there. Even the Unbelievers of the days of Nongqawuse never had it. It was invented by the Unbelievers of today. When the sad times passed and the trials of the Middle Generations were over, it became necessary to create something that would make them appreciate this new happiness of the new age. What better way than to lament the folly of belief of the era of the child-prophetesses and the sufferings of the Middle Generations which were brought about by the same scourge of belief?”

  Camagu no longer wants to steal away. He wants to stay and watch the whole ritual. NoPetticoat continues, “The revival of unbelief meant that Unbelievers must learn anew how to celebrate unbelief. Xoliswa’s father was one of those who were sent to the hinterland to borrow the dances and trances of the abaThwa that take one to the world of the ancestors.”