The Heart of Redness: A Novel

by Mda, Zakes

  The king was sad and humiliated. For the first time, he faced criticism from angry crowds. When he tried to address them they heckled him, and the imbhizo ended in chaos. A broken man, he decided to ride back to his Great Place at Hohita. On the way he tried to kill himself with his father’s spear. His councillors stopped him. They were forced to keep a close eye on him and hide all the knives, spears, and other weapons from him.

  Yet Twin and thousands of the staunch Believers remained in Butter-worth. Early in February, hope was rekindled. Even the dejected Sarhili gained some courage. There were rumors that the prophecies had already been fulfilled in the land of Moshoeshoe. At the next full moon they would surely be fulfilled in the land of Sarhili. The king rode back to Butterworth to be with the celebrating masses.

  The masses were hungry, but they lived on faith.

  The prophecies had spoken that during the resurrection the sun would rise late in the morning. It would be red like blood. It would not venture far, but would return to its starting point only to set again. The earth would then be covered in absolute darkness. There would be a raging storm accompanied by thunder and lightning, during which the dead would arise.

  “I am staying!” declared King Sarhili, addressing the multitudes. “I am staying with you here to see my father, Hintsa, and his cattle rise again!”

  The people cheered and ululated.

  The king asked local traders to sell his people candles so that they might have some light during the great darkness. John Dalton was seen going up and down selling candles to the Believers. He had crateloads of candles and was supplying even other traders whose stores had run out. Whereas the traders expected the Believers to come to their stores to buy this essential commodity, Dalton took his candles right there to the multitudes. He worked up a sweat peddling the candles the entire day. That was the beginning of his trading empire.

  The more practical Believers did not spend their time singing and dancing like Twin and Qukezwa and the multitudes that gathered in Butterworth. They prepared for the new people by sewing new milk sacks, renovating their houses and making new doors for them, and rebuilding their kraals. Even those widows who had remarried left their current husbands and returned to their old homesteads to await the resurrection of their first loves.

  On 16 February 1857, the long-awaited day dawned. The sun rose. It was not the color of blood. It looked like any other sun. It did not rise late either. The Believers watched it in disbelief as it moved across the sky. There was no darkness. No thunder. No lightning. The dead did not arise.

  The Unbelievers went about their usual work. But for the Believers it was the day of the Great Disappointment.

  Perhaps on the following day things would be different, sighed the Believers. But nothing happened. And the next day. And the next. Until all hope faded away.

  Twin and Qukezwa slowly made their way back to Qolorha. Their hunger belts were fastened even tighter. They lived on grass and ants. They were angry. But not with the prophets. The Great Disappointment was the fault of Nxito and his spies, who had insulted the new people. It was the fault of all Unbelievers, who had refused to slaughter their cattle and continued to cultivate their lands.

  But King Sarhili had finally lost all hope. He took the blame upon himself for issuing the imiyolelo, the orders that people should obey the prophets of Gxarha. He told John Dalton, “I have been deceived. I must explain this whole matter to The Man Who Named Ten Rivers personally. Please send a message to him that my people and I do not want any war.”

  “I will see what I can do,” said Dalton, “although at the moment I am busy setting up my trading store. I have retired from full-time service in Her Majesty’s Government.”

  Twin and Qukezwa went back to Mhlakaza’s homestead to replenish their faith. There was Mhlakaza preaching to a small group of desperate Believers who were hoping to hear words of encouragement. Nongqawuse and Nombanda were standing next to him. As usual Nongqawuse looked confused and disorientated, and Nombanda had a distant look in her eyes.

  “Nongqawuse says the new people say they do not want to be troubled with the importunity of the amaXhosa, and will make their appearance when they think fit.”

  “There is no hope,” whispered Qukezwa. “The prophets are forsaking us.”

  “There is some hope,” replied Twin. “Mhlakaza says they say they will still make their appearance. In spite of what the Unbelievers have done to them, they have not deserted us completely.”

  “Blame the amaGogotya, the Unbelievers!” declaimed Mhlakaza. “They have refused to kill their cattle. The new people were ready to rise. The great Naphakade, He-Who-Is-Forever, was ready to lead them to our shores, driving more than six thousand cattle. But the ancestors of the Unbelievers still want to save their descendants from eternal damnation. They hope that the stubborn Unbelievers will change their minds and kill their cattle. Only then will the dead arise. It is for you, beautiful amaThamba, you the Believers, to see to it that these prophecies are fulfilled. It is for you to see to it that all cattle in the land are killed.”

  There was general fury against the Unbelievers. Believers invaded Unbelievers’ kraals and cattle-posts. They also stole grain from their granaries. And chickens from their fowl-runs. Even dogs were not spared. Back in Hohita, at his Great Place, King Sarhili made things worse when he declared, “I cannot starve. There are still cattle in the land, and they are mine. I will take them as I require them.”

  Twin-Twin vowed that he was going to protect whatever cattle he had left with his life. His grain was threatening to run out. He had not been able to cultivate the land since he had been placed under protection in Qolorha. He feared that the Believers would burn his fields.

  He was going to nurse his grain until the next harvest. Hopefully the Believers had learned their lesson and would start cultivating the land instead of destroying the crops of those who wanted to feed their families.

  He did not give a hoot for the plight of the Believers. He felt no pity even when he heard stories that his twin brother, his brother’s yellow-colored wife, and their yellow-colored son were surviving on the bark of the mimosa tree.

  His praise name was not He Who Wakes Up With Yesterday’s Anger for nothing.

  The mimosa tree, or the umga, as the amaXhosa call it, is plentiful and grows easily. It is the only tree a person can chop without the chief’s permission. For all other trees, even foreign ones, one is supposed to get permission before one can chop them down.

  It is for the crime of chopping down a tree that Qukezwa appears before the court, the inkundla, of Chief Xikixa. Camagu is among the people who have come to listen to the case. He wonders what came over Qukezwa to make her chop down trees, when she has always presented herself as their protector. Part of her objection to the planned holiday paradise is that the natural beauty of Qolorha-by-Sea will be destroyed. But here she is, standing before the graybeards of the village, being charged with the serious crime of vandalizing trees. What is worse, she was not even in need of firewood. She just chopped them down and left them there.

  Yet she stands defiant. Like her father, she has taken to shaving her head, although she has not gone to the extent of shaving off her eyebrows. The red blanket that she wears over her shoulders reaches down to her ankles. But it cannot hide the protruding stomach. She looks forlorn in her defiance.

  An elder sums up the charges against Qukezwa, daughter of Zim. Yesterday she was seen cutting down a number of fully grown trees in Nongqawuse’s Valley. She continued with impunity even when women from Xikixa’s Great Place shouted at her to stop. She displayed her bad upbringing by daring anyone to physically stop her.

  Bhonco stands up to object.

  “This is highly irregular,” he complains. “Where have you seen a child this age being charged or sued for anything? According to our customs and tradition, when a minor has committed an offense it is his or her father or legal guardian who is charged.”

  “I am twenty years old,
” says Qukezwa.

  “You are a minor still. Even if you were thirty or fifty you would still be a minor as long as you are not married,” explains Chief Xikixa.

  “That is the old law,” cries Qukezwa, “the law that weighed heavily on our shoulders during the sufferings of the Middle Generations. In the new South Africa where there is no discrimination, it does not work.”

  “Now she wants to teach us about the law,” mutters the chief.

  “She may be right on the question of minority when a woman is not married. But still she is under twenty-one,” says a councillor of the chief. “The law is clear that she is a minor.”

  “They vote at eighteen nowadays,” says another elder helpfully.

  “Perhaps she thinks that just because she is with child she can stand for herself,” moans Bhonco, ignoring all the niceties of what the law says or does not say. “Or does she think her illicit liaison with this son of Cesane who has brought nothing but trouble to this village qualifies as a marriage?”

  “I have nothing to do with this case. I do not know why this elder drags my name into it,” protests Camagu, looking at the chief for protection.

  “Why is Zim hiding behind his daughter’s skirts? Why doesn’t he stand up like a man and take the rap?” asks Bhonco.

  Zim gracefully stands up and gives a mocking chuckle in Bhonco’s direction.

  “How can I be hiding myself when I am here in person?” Zim wonders. “Was it me who said you must charge my daughter instead of me? I know the laws, customs, and traditions of our people as well as any man. You people, you cowards, decided to charge my daughter instead of me! Is that my fault?”

  “Do you hear what you are saying, Zim?” asks the councillor. “Are you insulting this inkundla by calling us all, including the chief, cowards?”

  “That is your own interpretation,” says Zim, sitting down.

  “Perhaps I should explain how this girl got to be charged,” says Chief Xikixa. “When we sent a messenger to Zim’s homestead he found this girl. She insisted that she was the one who should be charged. She and not her father cut the trees, she said. And she boasted that she was going to cut them again and again. It seems that my messenger got angry and decided to teach her a lesson by charging her instead of her father. In the course of it all, he forgot about our judicial customs and traditions. The fact of the matter is that Zim is the one who must answer for his daughter’s actions.”

  “I do not mean to be rude to you, my elders,” says Qukezwa, displaying a humble demeanor that some might see as uncharacteristic. “I cut the trees, and I shall cut them again.”

  “This stubborn girl must sit down or get away from here. Since when do girls attend an inkundla? Since when do they address their elders with such disrespect? Is it the seed of this son of Cesane that is jumping about in her womb that makes her talk like this?” demands Bhonco.

  The men laugh. Another one shouts, “It is the modernity that you Unbelievers are fighting to introduce here at Qolorha!”

  But Camagu will not let the elder get away with libeling him like this. He shouts from where he is sitting, “Hey, Tat’uBhonco! Do you have cattle to pay for my name that you are dragging in mud? I shall sue you dry!”

  “This girl must get away from here,” insists Bhonco, ignoring Camagu.

  “She cannot go away, because she is a witness in this case,” says the councillor. “Although we are charging Zim, she is the one who cut the trees. She must explain why she did it.”

  “She has already admitted that she cut the trees. All we need to do is to fine her father,” argues Bhonco.

  The inkundla agrees that there is no need to waste time on this matter. The girl has admitted that she committed the crime. The gray-beards cannot sit here all day long when there are other matters to deal with. There is, for instance, this question of the developers who are said to be bringing civilization to Qolorha. Today they must thrash it out. Camagu must explain exactly what he meant when he said the place could be turned into a national heritage site, and how that would benefit the people of Qolorha.

  “The chief must mete out an appropriate fine so that we may move on,” an elder suggests.

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” says Zim. “You cannot talk of meting out a fine when you have not heard from our side.”

  “What is there to hear from your side?” asks Bhonco.

  “This girl has cut down the inkberry before, yet no one complained about that.”

  “The inkberry is poison. It is well known that it destroys every-thing before it!”

  “So do the trees that I cut down,” says Qukezwa. “They are foreign trees! They are not the trees of our forefathers!”

  “Are you going to cut down trees just because they are foreign trees?” asks Bhonco indignantly. “Are you going to go out to the forest of Nogqoloza and destroy all the trees there just because they were imported from the land of the white man in the days of our fathers?”

  “The trees in Nogqoloza don’t harm anybody, as long as they stay there,” explains Qukezwa patiently. “They are bluegum trees. The trees that I destroyed are as harmful as the inkberry. They are the lantana and wattle trees. They come from other countries. . . from Central America, from Australia . . . to suffocate our trees. They are dangerous trees that need to be destroyed.”

  “The law says only the umga, the mimosa, can be cut without permission,” insists Bhonco, son of Ximiya. “The law does not mention any other tree.”

  “Then the law must be changed,” says Qukezwa, explaining once more. “Just like the umga, the seed of the wattle tree is helped by fire. The seed can lie there for ten years, but when fire comes it grows. And it uses all the water. Nothing can grow under the wattle tree. It is an enemy since we do not have enough water in this country. If the umga can be cut without permission because it spreads like wildfire, so should the wattle . . . and the lantana for that matter. So should the inkberry, which I have always cut without being hurled before the elders.”

  Most of the elders nod their agreement. Some express it in grunts and mumbles. One mutters his wonder at the source of Qukezwa’s wisdom when she is but a slip of a girl. Shouldn’t she be focusing her interest on red ochre and other matters of good grooming and beauty?

  “The law is the law,” insists Bhonco. “It cannot be changed for the sake of this impetuous girl. The law says only the mimosa can be cut without permission. We must not apply the law selectively. Remember that only a month ago two white tourists who were staying at the Blue Flamingo were arrested by the police, no less, for smuggling cycads from our village. Remember that last week we punished boys right here at this inkundla for killing the red-winged starling, the isomi bird.”

  There can be no comparison here, the elders say all at once. The isomi is a holy bird. It is blessed. No one is allowed to kill it.

  The chief’s councillor is obviously moved. He stands up and declaims, “Shall we now be required to teach revered elders like Bhonco about our taboos? It is a sin to kill isomi. Yes, boys love its delicious meat that tastes like chicken. But from the time we were young we were taught never to kill isomi. We ate these birds only when they died on their own. We watched them living together in huge colonies in the forest or flying in big flocks of thousands. We only desired them from a distance. We rejoiced when they fought among themselves, often to death, for we knew that only then were we allowed to eat them. These are sacred birds. If an isomi flies into your house your family will be blessed. Isomi is a living Christ on earth. If you kill isomi you will be followed by misfortune in every direction you go. When we punish boys for killing red-winged starlings, we are teaching them about life. We are saving them from future misfortune.”

  “I say the same rules that apply to the mimosa must apply to the wattle tree and to the lantana,” shouts Zim out of turn.

  “Perhaps we should look at the intentions of Qukezwa before we pass judgment in this case,” suggests Camagu.

  They look at him as if he is so
mething a naughty puppy has just dragged into the house from the garbage heap. No one thought he would have the audacity to contribute his say in this matter. After all, everyone now knows that he was fed a powerful potion by the Believers, which turned him against a well-mannered and educated woman of the Unbelievers, only to run like a puppy after this tree-cutting siren. Now she is even carrying his child. Of course the village is divided on the matter of the child, as the grandmothers long since proclaimed that she has not known a man—in the biblical sense, that is. And no one can question their expertise in these matters.

  Wouldn’t it have been wise if he, as an interested party, had kept his mouth shut? But then every man of the village participates in the inkundla court cases. No one ever recuses himself, even when he is related to the disputing parties.

  Bhonco stands up to respond and put this spineless foreigner in his place. But all the attention of the men is drawn to a cloud of smoke that is billowing in the distance. Herdboys suddenly appear with buckets of water, running towards the blaze that is rising to the sky.

  “Umzi uyatsha! A homestead is burning!” they shout.

  The inkundla breaks up and the men rush to assist in extinguishing the fire. Camagu takes advantage of the confusion to talk with Qukezwa.

  “Why can’t you just let things be?” he asks.

  “So you agree with them?”

  “No, I don’t. But the baby . . . it can’t be good for the baby if you put it under all this stress.”

  She smiles, and looks at her stomach.

  “Don’t worry, they won’t pursue the matter,” she assures him.

  “Oh yes they will, Bhonco will see to that.”

  “Go and help them put out the fire.”

  “First promise you won’t chop down any more trees.”

  “We’ll talk, okay?”

  She walks away. He follows her with his eyes for a while, then rushes to the billowing smoke. He is shocked beyond words to find that a number of homesteads are on fire, and one of them belongs to his business partner, NoGiant.