The Heart of Redness: A Novel

by Mda, Zakes

  “Have you asked Qukezwa to marry you,” asks Dalton, “and has she agreed? That is what the relatives want to know.”

  “I have not. I could not,” admits Camagu. “They would not let me see her.”

  “You have sent us here to make fools of ourselves. They will ask Qukezwa. What if she says no? Women don’t like to be taken for granted, you know?”

  “Okay, let me just say I asked her and she agreed!”

  “You are lying!”

  “You are my messenger. You don’t know what went on between us. Just tell them what I say.”

  They go back to join Zim and his relatives. Dalton tells them that the umfana—the young man in question—has indeed spoken with the intombi.

  “If that be the case, it is well,” says one relative. “Go and fetch the young man. We’ll decide on a new day to meet. We’ll have our intombi at hand.”

  “He is here already,” says Dalton, pointing at Camagu. “He is the suitor.”

  Again the relatives are taken aback. They look at Zim angrily.

  “Did you know about this?” asks an uncle.

  “I did not even know who the visitors were going to be,” Zim defends himself.

  “This is highly irregular,” says the uncle. “The suitor has come personally on the very first day. He is supposed to come on our demand. He is not supposed to negotiate his own marriage.”

  “I have no relatives here to do that for me, my fathers and mothers. It is for that reason I came myself with this son of Dalton.”

  “He is not an umfana,” observes an old woman. “He is too old for our daughter.”

  “Age has never mattered to our people,” says an old man. “If it does not matter to the intombi, why should it matter to us?”

  “Has he ever been married?” inquires the uncle.

  “I have never been married before, my fathers and mothers.”

  “Then he is an umfana, whatever his age,” says another old woman.

  “Does he know the situation of our daughter?” Another uncle directs this question to Dalton. “We must not talk here as if we have a daughter who can wear white on her wedding day.”

  “He knows it very well,” says Dalton.

  “Maybe he is even responsible for it,” adds a younger relative.

  “No, it cannot be,” says Zim emphatically. “The grandmothers have said she has never known a man.”

  “I do not care,” says Camagu desperately. “I am willing to take responsibility. I can even claim paternity if need be. All I want is to marry your daughter.”

  “Go back home,” says the uncle. “You will come back again. You know what to bring.”

  The days that follow are very hectic for Camagu. He sends people out to nearby villages to purchase three head of cattle that must be driven to Zim’s homestead on the second visit. These are not yet for the lobola. The first one is payment for the very act of asking for marriage, the second one is for the face of the woman, and the third one is for the room where the newlyweds will sleep, known as ikoyi.

  In the meantime, Camagu is asked by the chief to address the elders on the alternative plans for the development of the village, since he is one of the instigators of the rejection of the gambling complex that the consortium from Johannesburg wanted to build. He holds a series of meetings where he outlines his plans. At every meeting the Unbelievers are very vocal in advocating the holiday paradise that will bring civilization to the village, and he has to defend his plans vigorously. He even has to appear before the regional and provincial executives of the ruling party, who are not happy that there are obstacles to the injection of such wonderful investment into the village economy. At every meeting his plans become more thought out.

  At these meetings with political big shots, he never forgets to remind them that all the black empowerment groups in Johannesburg and other big cities empower only the chosen few. They do not create employment for the people. Instead, whenever these big companies are taken over by these groups, there follows what is euphemistically called rightsizing in order to maximize profits. Thousands of workers are retrenched. These black empowerment groups do not empower workers by creating jobs for them. Instead, workers lose jobs.

  It is the same with the company that wants to turn Qolorha into a holiday haven. Only a chosen few will benefit: the party and trade union bosses who are directors. They live in their mansions in Johannesburg and have nothing to do with the village. The villagers will actually lose more than they will gain from the few jobs that will be created. Very little of the money that is made here will circulate in the village. As for the dream—no, the nightmare—of town houses and the “English” retirement village for millionaires, the less said about it the better.

  “The less said about it the better because you have no alternative plan!” cries Bhonco, son of Ximiya. Laughter has deserted him once more. He has told his fellow Unbelievers that it was temporary insanity planted in him by the Believers.

  “I do have a better suggestion,” says Camagu.

  The villagers must come together, and using the natural material that is found in the village, the very material that they use to build and thatch their houses, they must build a backpackers’ hostel in Qolorha. There are many tourists who like to visit unspoiled places for the sole purpose of admiring the beauty of nature and watching birds without killing them. Such tourists would enjoy the hospitality of the ama-Gcaleka clan in self-catering rondavels or in the hostel with a kitchen and a dining room. Authentic food of the amaXhosa such as umngqusho, the maize samp that is cooked with beans, would be prepared for the guests. So would various types of shellfish such as amaqonga, imbhaza, amangquba, and imbhatyisa, which are plentiful in the rough sea. Many people would come for the seafood, especially if it is cooked in the unique manner of the people of Qolorha. Here he has in mind Qukezwa’s cooking that converted him to seafood when he first visited Zim’s homestead.

  “The gambling city is going to bring electricity to the village,” says Bhonco.

  “Electricity must come to the village . . . but not because of the gambling city,” Camagu responds. “The government must bring electricity here because the village needs it. It is the policy of the government now to electrify even the most remote villages.”

  Then all of a sudden he gets excited and shouts, “Come to think of it, we can even create our own electricity! From the sun! There is plenty of sunshine here! We can harness the sun to light our hostel and our houses! We can even cook and warm our water with the sun!”

  People shake their heads in wonderment. Even Camagu’s supporters think he is crazy. He tries, to explain to them the wonders of solar energy. These are not just dreams, he tells them. Such things are already happening in other places.

  Bhonco and his Unbelievers are getting worried that more people are being swayed by the picture that Camagu has painted.

  “The man is obviously a crook,” shouts Bhonco. “He says now we must build a hotel. For whom are we building this hotel? For him. He wants to use us to make himself rich in the same way he has used some of the foolish women of this village.”

  “Those foolish women, Tat’uBhonco, are making good money that you will not see even in your dreams,” replies Camagu. “And they make this money from their own business. I do not own the cooperative society. Its members own it. The same will happen if the villagers come together to build this holiday place that will give travelers the opportunity to experience life in an African home. The villagers who come together to build the place will own the place. They will not be working for anyone but themselves. It will not be big and wonderful like the gambling city with roller coasters and cable cars. But it will be ours. The Chinese have a saying that it is better to be the head of a chicken than to be the backside of an elephant.”

  “What have the Chinese got to do with this?” asks Bhonco derisively. “It is in the nature of Believers to put their faith in all these strange foreign people from across the seas. First it was the Russia
ns. Now it is the Chinese!”

  Those who understand what Camagu meant by the Chinese adage laugh.

  “After we have built the place, how will the tourists know about it?” asks a young woman.

  “We’ll advertise the place throughout the South African backpackers’ network. But we’ll also target different types of tourists. There are those who will come, for instance, because of the historical significance of the place. Remember this is a place of miracles! This is where Nongqawuse made her prophecies!”

  “That damned Nongqawuse again!” fumes Bhonco, walking out of the meeting.

  Camagu is pleased with himself. There is no doubt that most of the villagers support his idea.

  Zim has heard about his performance, and congratulates him as they sit under the giant wild fig tree with John Dalton, waiting for Zim’s relatives to continue haggling over Qukezwa. Zim does not attend the meetings anymore. He seems to have lost interest in anything that has to do with the village. When Camagu asks him about his lack of interest he says, “You will complete that work. My thoughts are no longer here. They are with NoEngland. Even now she has given me respite only in order to complete this matter of Qukezwa’s marriage.”

  “You talk in riddles, old man,” says Dalton. “What are you trying to tell us?”

  But before the elder can respond, some of his relatives arrive. And soon thereafter a boy comes driving the three head of cattle with which Camagu will be asking for Qukezwa’s hand in marriage. Women welcome the cattle with ululation.

  “Now that the cattle have arrived, we can proceed,” says an uncle.

  “But the brandy . . . where is the brandy?” asks another relative.

  Dalton rushes to his four-wheel-drive bakkie parked near the gate and comes back with a case of brandy.

  “We know the customs, my elders,” he says. “This occasion cannot be complete without the brandy that has been brought by the suitor.”

  “Let the girl be called,” says the uncle.

  Qukezwa stands in front of Zim, his relatives, and the suitor’s delegation that comprises only the suitor himself and John Dalton. Camagu has not seen her since she gave birth to Heitsi. She does not look at him. She is looking to the ground. She is expected to be shy on an occasion like this. Camagu laughs inside. Qukezwa looks so strange when she is shy.

  “Do you know these people?” asks the uncle.

  She casts a furtive glance at Camagu. He is dying inside. And praying that she will give the correct answer. He has not asked her before. He prays that she does not think that he takes her for granted. There was no way he could meet her to ask her to marry him. And there was no way he could wait for such an opportunity to present itself. He wants her to be with him. As soon as now!

  Camagu sighs with relief when Qukezwa says, “Yes, I know them.” If she had said she did not know them, that would have been the end of the story. It would have meant she was turning Camagu down.

  “From where do you know them?” inquires an aunt.

  “Here in the village of Qolorha,” responds Qukezwa.

  “To prove that you really know them, what is their clan name?” asks the uncle.

  “They are from the amaMpondomise people. They are of the Majola clan. They are the people whose totem is the snake,” says Qukezwa with confidence.

  Camagu smiles to himself.

  “You have heard her. She agrees,” says the uncle with satisfaction.

  “We have heard her,” responds Dalton.

  “You can go, my child,” commands the uncle.

  She gives Camagu a naughty wink before she turns away and walks to her rondavel that still has a reed jutting out.

  “My work is finished now,” says Dalton.

  “No, it is not finished,” says the aunt. “We have not talked about the lobola.”

  “Twelve head of cattle,” says Zim.

  “Tat’uZim! That’s rather steep,” pleads Dalton. “Unless of course each head of cattle is worth three hundred rand.”

  “Twelve cattle, and that is not negotiable,” insists Zim. “Qukezwa is a child of the spirits. Each head of cattle is worth a thousand rand.”

  “Let’s take it before they change their minds,” Camagu whispers to Dalton.

  “They can’t change their minds. It is the custom to negotiate . . . to try to bring them down,” Dalton whispers back. Then to the relatives he says, “We have decided to agree with your terms.”

  “It is agreed,” they say in unison.

  “After three days the girl’s uncle and some other relative will take her to our new son-in-law’s house,” says Zim. “According to custom we should be taking her to Camagu’s parents’ home, not to his house. But this is not a regular marriage. We are giving our daughter to a man whose parents and whose home we don’t even know.”

  “Indeed it is an irregular marriage,” agrees the uncle. “When we take this girl to your house, son of Cesane, you know that a goat known as tsiki must be slaughtered. Then our daughter has to be given a new name by the eldest daughter of her new family. But in your case, who is going to give our daughter a name?”

  “Yes,” adds an aunt, “and who will give the bride the leg of a goat?”

  “We’ll improvise,” says Camagu. “MamCirha and NoGiant will do all the things that are supposed to be done by my female relatives. They are like my relatives now.”

  “Look after our daughter well,” warns Zim.

  The women bring food from the house. There is plenty of mutton, samp, potatoes, and spinach. The meat is served in a big dish and the men use their own knives to cut it. The other food is served on individual enamel plates. There is no sorghum beer, though. Instead they serve the brandy brought by Dalton.

  “I had hoped our daughter-in-law would cook us her usual specialty of abalone, mussels, and oysters fried with onion and served with samp,” says Dalton as he munches away.

  “This child of Dalton!” exclaims the uncle. “Where do you come from? Don’t you know that our custom demands that on occasions like this, proper meat should be served and not your snakes from the sea?”

  They all laugh and say that young people like to change tradition. They roar even more when one of them makes the observation that both their new son-in-law and Dalton are not so young, but are middle-aged, and should in fact be preserving customs instead of trying to change them.

  “Don’t allow our daughter to cut any more trees,” an aunt advises Camagu, “otherwise you will run around in court all your life.”

  “By the way, what happened to her case?” asks the uncle.

  “It just fizzled out. No one talks of it anymore,” says Zim proudly. “That Unbeliever Bhonco tried very hard to resuscitate it. But the elders of the village have more important things to deal with.”

  The talk turns to that evil Bhonco and his Cult of the Unbelievers. The gathering mocks the folly of unbelief. They ridicule their rituals and praise the abaThwa for taking back their dance. They curse Bhonco’s forebears for refusing to kill their cattle, thus destroying the amaXhosa nation. The Unbeliever’s foolish forebears must take the responsibility for the failure of the prophecies.

  “I for one think that on this matter of Nongqawuse, Bhonco has a point,” says Dalton quite unwisely. “It is your forebears who were foolish for killing their cattle.”

  They look at him as if he has uttered the worst of blasphemies. Camagu suspects that the brandy has run to his head. No sober man, no sane man, can risk saying anything nice about Bhonco in the midst of such hard-core Believers. He is fortunate that they are in such a good mood after the successful negotiations that went completely in their favor. Otherwise they would be eating him alive. Instead of making a meal of him, they are dumbfounded.

  “Has this child of Dalton been bought by the Unbelievers? Didn’t you tell me that he is on the side of the Believers, Zim?” asks the uncle.

  “He is a fickle man,” says Zim.

  Dalton doesn’t seem to notice the stir he has caused. He
just goes on gulping his brandy and talking in a very careless manner.

  “No, I am not fickle. And I am not on the side of the Believers. Neither is Camagu. We just happen to agree with you, or you with us, on this matter of development, of preserving the indigenous trees, plants, animals, and birds. That is all. We are not Nongqawuse’s people.”

  “Well, John, this is not the time and the place to argue about such things,” Camagu pleads.

  “The truth must be told, Camagu,” says Dalton. “Otherwise they will be expecting you to participate in their quarrels and their rituals.”

  “This child of Dalton says our forebears were foolish,” says Zim sadly. “Is that why his forebears cooked them?”

  “Will you ever forget about that?” appeals Dalton. “You people are just like Bhonco. Whenever we don’t see eye to eye on the smallest of things, you bring up this cooking business!”

  “Foolish?” ponders the uncle. “Our belief is foolish? This child of Dalton has been bought by the Unbelievers.”

  “No, he did not mean it that way, my fathers,” says Camagu. “There is nothing foolish about belief.”

  “Nothing foolish about belief!” exclaims Dalton incredulously. “Dead people and cattle rising from the sea! And you say there is nothing foolish about that?”

  “If your Christ can walk on the sea and turn water into wine, so can Nongqawuse’s cattle rise from the sea,” declares Zim. “And they did rise. People saw them, didn’t they? Even kings like Sarhili saw them. There were witnesses to these miracles, in the same way that your Christ had witnesses to his. Of course, the cattle rose only to prove the truth of the prophecies. They rose only to be seen among the waves, then went back to the world of the ancestors. They would not have gone back if the Unbelievers had not continued to unbelieve.”

  “The old man is putting it well,” says Camagu. “Believers are sincere in their belief. In this whole matter of Nongqawuse I see the sincerity of belief, John. It is the same sincerity of belief that has been seen throughout history and continues to be seen today where those who believe actually see miracles. The same sincerity of belief that causes thousands to commit mass suicide by drinking poison in Jonestown, Guyana, because the world is coming to an end . . . or that leads men, women, and children to die willingly in flames with their prophet, David Koresh, in Waco, Texas.”