The Heart of Redness: A Novel

by Mda, Zakes

  “The prophets have not failed us,” declared Twin. “We have failed them. We have failed ourselves. The fault is not with the prophecies, but with the Unbelievers, who failed to obey Nongqawuse! The dead will yet arise!”

  “You can sit here, Father of Heitsi, and wait for the dead to rise. I am taking my child away.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I will go to the land of the amaMfengu. I heard that they have given refuge to quite a few of the starving amaXhosa.”

  “You can’t desert the prophets now!”

  “Desert the prophets?” laughs Qukezwa mockingly. “They deserted us. Where are they now? Mhlakaza is dead. The girl-prophets were arrested. Your prophets lied to us. The god of your people is weak. He failed to protect his people. I am going back to the god of my people, the Khoikhoi people.”

  Indeed Qukezwa went back to the god of her people. She begged his forgiveness for abandoning him. Qukezwa, daughter of the stars, returned to worshipping the seven daughters of Tsiqwa, the one who told his stories in heaven, the one who created the world and all humanity. The prodigal daughter communed once more with the bright stars that were also known as the Seven Sisters.

  In the same way that she had led the sons of Xikixa to the land of plenty a few years before, she led Twin and Heitsi to the land of the amaMfengu. But this time there was no Gxagxa to ride. They walked on foot, their hunger belts tightly tied around their stomachs. There was no Twin-Twin and his many women and children. There were no cattle to drive. No pigs. No chickens. Just the three emaciated souls with calloused feet.

  On the way they came across many dead bodies lying on the road. Some of the bodies had not finished dying yet. Their sunken eyes showed a little glimmer of life. Their cracked skin looked like land that had been thoroughly punished by drought. Their skin clung desperately to their bones. Twin and Qukezwa knew that they would be very fortunate if they themselves were not eventually counted among the roadside dead.

  Although they looked like people risen from the grave, they arrived in the land of the amaMfengu, and found many Believers who had taken refuge with various families. They were provided with shelter in exchange for their labor. They looked after cattle, hoed the rich fields, and did guard duty for their amaMfengu hosts. This was very humiliating to many Believers who came from some of the noblest families of the amaGcaleka clan.

  Twin and Qukezwa were quarreling all the time. He was unhappy that she had led them to the land of the amaMfengu, who were known traitors in alliance with the British. They had ignored the prophecies of Nongqawuse and had become rich by buying cattle cheaply from the Believers. Now they were slaughtering cattle and feeding the amafaca, the emaciated ones.

  “Would you rather we had died at Qolorha?” asked Qukezwa.

  He could not answer that, but continued to moan about the treacherous nature of their saviors. He threatened that as soon as he got strong enough he would leave. He would go back to the land of his forefathers.

  “You have nothing. What will you do there?” Qukezwa reasoned.

  “I will find Twin-Twin,” he said. But there was no conviction in his voice. “Or I will go to Lesotho or to the land of the amaMpondo and the amaMpondomise. Many Believers have taken refuge there. It is not as humiliating as it is here.”

  Qukezwa just chuckled and said that maybe Twin-Twin would welcome him with open arms after all the mischief that Twin had done against him. Then she went to feed Heitsi with umphokoqo maize porridge and creamy amasi sour milk.

  Twin-Twin, of course, was in no mood to welcome any of the people who had caused the downfall of his nation. He was still receiving protection from the colonial government through John Gawler and John Dalton. Dalton had been eager to retire from the colonial service to start his own business, but he had been persuaded to remain in the service of the great queen, at least until things settled on the frontier and in British Kaffraria. He was now a magistrate in his own right. He was permanently based at Chief Nxito’s chiefdom, and was therefore directly responsible for protecting both Twin-Twin and the aging chief from the marauding Believers.

  But Twin-Twin was more disillusioned with the colonial government than ever. The Man Who Named Ten Rivers, who had styled himself The Great Benefactor of the Non-European Peoples of the World, was taking advantage of the defenseless amaXhosa and was grabbing more and more of their land for white settlement. Twin-Twin’s scars itched all over when he heard stories of advancing parties of settlers who were demarcating for themselves chunks of farmland on the ruins of the Believers’ homesteads. Those amaXhosa who continued to occupy their homesteads suddenly discovered that they were squatters on their own land and now had to work for the new masters.

  The Man Who Named Ten Rivers ordered that only those who agreed to work for the colonists would be given famine relief. Many amaXhosa found themselves working as slaves in white settlements, being paid only in food rations.

  “We are achieving what we set out to do,” he benevolently told his magistrates. “The Xhosa are becoming useful servants, consumers of our goods, contributors to our revenue. Like the Maori of New Zealand, these people are not irreclaimable savages. We should make them a part of ourselves, with a common faith and common interests.”

  He was happy that all his plans were coming together so nicely. It had always been his intention to break the independence of the amaXhosa by destroying the powers of the chiefs, and forcing their subjects from their land to work for white settlers on their farms and in their towns. He was achieving this sooner than he had expected. Thanks to the cattle-killing movement.

  The magistrates, however, felt that Sir George was sending mixed messages. He was constantly complaining to them about what he called indiscriminate benevolence. The magistrates were dishing out charity to people who were still able to work. According to Sir George, this was not true charity. Indiscriminate charity would attract hordes of natives to Kingwilliamstown, he said. Some would come from as far as Zulu-land to take advantage of the soup that was being given at the Kaffir Relief House—a charitable institution established by the missionaries.

  “I do not understand what Sir George is trying to achieve,” said Dalton one day as he rode with Gawler among the skulls and fragments of human bones near the Gxarha River. “He is trying to break the Kaffir Relief Committee because he claims their charity is attracting masses of natives to Kingwilliamstown. Yet at the same time he is sending his officers to recruit more natives to work as laborers in the colony.”

  “You never know with Sir George,” said Gawler. “I think he wants to close the Kaffir Relief House.”

  “He should just close it and not make excuses. Now he is accusing us of indiscriminate charity.”

  “He knows what he is doing. He is a brilliant man.”

  “You like the man, don’t you? You are the one who puts his theories into practice.”

  “On the contrary, I don’t like the man. I am faithful to him for the good of the British Empire. He is an excellent governor. And humane too. But I don’t like the man.”

  “You don’t like him? I don’t believe that.”

  “Because you do not know what he did to my father, who was the governor of Southern Australia. My dear father lost his job after Sir George’s denunciations. They claimed he had mismanaged the finances of the colony. What is more, Sir George denounced my father after my family had given him wonderful hospitality at our home.”

  The Man Who Named Ten Rivers’ opposition to indiscriminate charity extended to the amaMfengu. He could not tolerate their humanity towards the amafaca, the emaciated ones, and instructed their chief to expel those amaXhosa who had found refuge among his people. Twin and Qukezwa were among the thousands of people who were driven out of the land of the amaMfengu. Two thousand of these refugees were handed over to the colonial labor officers. Twin was too weak to attract the interest of anyone at the labor market. He ended up an inmate of the Kaffir Relief House, and there he lived with people who had been ma
de raving mad by starvation, until he went raving mad himself. Meanwhile, Qukezwa wandered from village to village with Heitsi, begging for scraps of food. She hoped that one day she would locate her Khoikhoi people and would be welcomed into their warm bosom.

  Twin-Twin heard how thousands of his people had died as a result of the cattle-killing movement. He heard of the activities of The Man Who Named Ten Rivers. He saw with his own eyes white settlements spreading over the lands of his people. He was filled with bitterness and his scars went wild.

  He and Chief Nxito shook their heads over the disaster that had befallen their people.

  “We have been cheated,” he told Nxito. “These people through whose ears the sun shines are spreading like a plague in kwaXhosa.”

  “What can we do? We are a defeated people,” said the old chief.

  “It must be true that The Man Who Named Ten Rivers planned all this cattle-killing business,” said Twin-Twin. “He is the one who planted these ideas in the mind of Nongqawuse. He wanted the amaXhosa people to defeat themselves. Now he is enjoying the spoils of victory without having lifted a finger.”

  “What can we do?” repeated Nxito tiredly. “We are a conquered people.”

  “And we helped them to conquer us! Just like that foolish King Ngqika, the very father of General Maqoma, the hero of the War of Mlanjeni. When these white people first came, the alcoholic King Ngqika believed that they were his subjects. He welcomed them and allowed them to preach their gospel among his people. When he woke up the next morning they had taken his entire country and he was their subject.”

  “Many people are now turning to the god of the white man, for they have seen that he is more powerful than our god,” said Nxito.

  “He is not powerful at all,” said Twin-Twin dismissively. “Is he not the one who sat idle while the white people killed his son? I for one am tired of all these gods.”

  Twin-Twin went away to brood on the dangers of religion.

  Ned, Mjuza, Dalton, and Gawler had all tried, at various times, to convert him to Christianity. But he told them he could not join a religion that allowed its followers to treat people the way the British had treated the amaXhosa. He was indeed disillusioned with all religions. He therefore invented his own Cult of the Unbelievers—elevating unbelieving to the heights of a religion.

  Without the dance, the Cult of the Unbelievers is almost dead. Bhonco, son of Ximiya, is at the height of misery. The abaThwa will not lend them the dance even for a single day. The Unbelievers tried to invent their own. But they had no experience in inventing dances that send people into a trance, especially the kinds of trances that send people back in time. Their invention lacked potency.

  It really is a pity that the woman-loving ancestor Twin-Twin died before he could perfect the rituals of his cult. Otherwise the present-day Cult of the Unbelievers would not have had to borrow dances from the abaThwa, but they would instead have immersed themselves in the rituals of old, which would automatically have become the cord that connected them to the world of the forebears. A world filled with essential pain and suffering.

  When things are like this there is no balm that can soothe Bhonco’s scars.

  Loneliness devours his insides. NoPetticoat, his once-loving wife, spends a lot of time at the cooperative society. She claims she is still a loving wife, and that her stubborn husband is the one who refuses to understand her needs. But even when she is at home, the once-uxorious Bhonco does not talk with her. He will not talk with her until she stops gallivanting with Believers or their sympathizers. He grudgingly eats the food she cooks, and will not even say when he is not full and he needs some more. When she is not at the coop she sits under the tree that used to be the venue of the harrowing dances of the Unbelievers, and gracefully smokes her long pipe. Since her rebellion she has gone back to smoking her long pipe. And to wearing her traditional isiXhosa costumes of umbhaco and beads. At the cooperative society she has gained a reputation as the best sewer of umbhaco, which are decorations of black strips that are made on isikhakha skirts and on modern shirts that are inspired by the isikhakha tradition.

  Xoliswa Ximiya finds these habits disgusting. She had successfully weaned her parents from redness, until NoPetticoat’s rebellion. She pleaded with her at length, but her mother was adamant that she was no longer going to stifle herself with soulless European clothes. They were an utter punishment for her. She loves the clothes of the amahomba. She has always loved them. She will always love them. As for puffing on her long pipe, she is no longer prepared to suffer from ukunqanqatheka—the searing desire for tobacco—just to make her daughter happy. She has grabbed for herself the freedom to enjoy her pungent tobacco.

  But Xoliswa Ximiya has more to worry about. She knows that she will never get Camagu back. He has decided to forsake all forms of civilized life and to follow heathen ways. He is a lost cause. She wouldn’t have been happy with him in any case. She stands for civilization and progress, while he is bent on reinforcing shameful practices and uncultured modes of dress. They deserve each other, he and Qukezwa. They will wallow in redness together. She, daughter of Ximiya, will soon turn her back on this village.

  Nevertheless, she is disturbed by the usual wagging tongues of Qolorha-by-Sea. They say she has become a turncoat and now believes in the developments that Camagu and the Believers are advocating. Some say that she has changed sides only because she thinks it is the best way to win Camagu back. Yet others say that Qukezwa stole Camagu to avenge her brother, Twin, whom Xoliswa Ximiya ejected like a jet of spit only because he had no schooling. Gossip has never bothered Xoliswa Ximiya before. But these rumors are getting out of hand, especially this last one. She finds that she has to defend herself constantly, even to people she does not regard as deserving to walk the same earth with her. The sooner she leaves this heart of redness the better.

  But this is not the end of Xoliswa Ximiya’s troubles. She wakes up one day and finds that the scars of history have erupted on her body. All of a sudden her ancestor’s flagellation has become her flagellation. She rebels against these heathen scars. She refuses to believe that they are part of an ancestral vengeance. She curses her father for resuscitating the Cult of the Unbelievers.

  “Even if I had not started the cult, the scars would still have come when they wanted to come,” says Bhonco. “They have nothing to do with the cult. Even the Middle Generations got the scars though they knew nothing of the cult. It is a burden that a first child of Twin-Twin’s line has to carry.”

  The Unbelievers were shocked to hear of the scars on their daughter’s civilized body. They thought that the scars had come to an end, as Bhonco did not have a male heir to inherit them. In all history, they have never been imposed on a woman. Everyone, therefore, believed that the curse of the scars had finally been broken.

  When Bhonco was younger, and his wife could not have a son, they had tried to persuade him to take a second wife who could give him an heir. But he was so much in love with NoPetticoat that he refused to marry anyone else. People even said that NoPetticoat had bewitched him with a love potion. She was obviously a witch, like Twin-Twin’s senior wife had been. But both Bhonco and NoPetticoat had laughed at this idle talk.

  Now here their daughter is getting the scars.

  “What else did they expect?” ask the wagging tongues. “She is a man in a woman’s body. That is why no man can tame her. That is why even a doctor like Camagu was afraid to marry her. He knew that she was her own boss, and that she would not be controlled by any man. That is why she rules all those men and women at the secondary school with an iron stick.”

  Xoliswa Ximiya packs up and leaves Qolorha-by-Sea. She has lost the battle for the soul of the village and for the love of Camagu. She has got a new job with the Department of Education in Pretoria. She is going off to more civilized places. Places with streetlights. She will be in a better position to consult specialists—dermatologists and plastic surgeons—to remove the accursed scars.

  Once
again Bhonco is devastated. Not only has he lost his wife to the Believers, now he has lost his daughter to the city. Worse still, he has lost the prestige of being the father of the principal.

  Xoliswa Ximiya is too far away to hear the wagging tongues that insist that she is running away because she is heartbroken. Love has driven her out of the village, they say. And it does serve her right. She is getting a dose of her own medicine. She drove Twin away by being stingy with her love.

  Camagu is sorry to hear that Xoliswa Ximiya has left without even a good-bye. But he has no time to worry about this. There are more worries at Zim’s place.

  There is Zim who is refusing to die. He is hovering between the Otherworld—the world of the ancestors that runs parallel to this world—and the world of today’s Qolorha-by-Sea. The Believers appeal to Qukezwa, “It is because you are holding him with your heart. Please release the poor man. He has done his duty on earth. Let the elder go!”

  Everyone looks forward to the pleasant life in the Otherworld. It is cruel to hold the elder to this earth.

  Qukezwa is angry that everyone wants the old man to die. She is even angrier that she is being blamed for his state.

  “How do you people know that this time my father’s time has really come?” she demands. “How do you know that he cannot be cured out of this state and enjoy the life of this world again?”

  People remember that Zim wanted to die once many years ago. He felt that he had overstayed his welcome on earth. So he slaughtered a goat, by which he was asking the ancestors to give him the road to their eternal place—ecela indlela. But the ancestors refused to take him. And now here he is, sitting in the middle of his relatives, and staring at one spot on the wall. How can anyone be sure that this time the ancestors are ready to accept him?

  “Oh yes, they are ready,” declares an elder of the Believers. “This time for sure he’ll succeed to go. NoEngland is very powerful.”