The Zulus of New York

by Zakes Mda

  ‘You did?’ he asks incredulously. ‘And you even know it was a Remington!’

  ‘My hand did.’

  He smiles as clarity dawns on him. ‘Your jok’s hand?’

  ‘The Divinities were taking their time. I had become too impatient. I did it myself with my own hand. Of course, my jok guided it.’

  ‘It was your jok!’

  ‘You cannot separate the two,’ she says. ‘Anyway, it changes nothing. It is divine retaliation on me, not him. He is no longer here to feel the punishment; I am.’

  She does not want to talk about this any more. She wants to talk about happy things instead. She demands he tell her only happy things.

  ‘I am on my way to Chicago,’ he says.

  ‘How is that a happy thing?’

  It is a happy thing because it is the only way he will be able to return to Africa. And he needs to return; the urge is even greater now that he met his countrymen who are doing remarkable things in America and are all working towards returning home to do similar great things there. He tells her about Dr Nembula, who he did not meet but about whose work he heard wonderful things, not only as a medical doctor but as an activist in cooperative agriculture and other community upliftment projects; about Langalibalele Dube, a great man of learning, also tirelessly working for progress and the emancipation of the entire Black race, not just amaZulu; the students who have come to acquire skills that will make them just as good as White people in kwaZulu; and Freddy Coomerlow, a very intelligent rebel who may not return home but is likely to stay here and accumulate wealth as a wheelwright. At least, that’s what his argument indicated to Em-Pee: disillusionment with the situation in the old country.

  ‘These men don’t dance for the White man,’ says Em-Pee.

  He has stopped dancing. But only until he gets home. When he gets home, he will dance for his people. And with them. For everyone in his homeland is a dancer.

  Dance is a way of life. It is a way of death too. It is a way of healing, of ancestral veneration, of praying, of working, of making love, of eating and drinking. It is a way of celebration, though he has little to celebrate. He has a long way to go before he catches up with his age-mates. As he struggled to make it in America as an independent performer, his mates back home were making strides in the society, accumulating wealth, marrying wives, ploughing fields, owning cattle, participating in the affairs of the state, and gaining respect and prestige.

  He is returning with nothing; his only wealth is his son, Mavo. Where he came from he was a statesman, part of the military and chief class, so close to the king that he bathed him.

  But here in the land of the White man he is just a performing monkey.

  Now, he is going to sell his labour in Chicago, where he heard there is a demand for authentic Zulus. Not to dance, but to work.

  The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition opened on 1 May and will run until 30 October. It is the biggest international trade fair ever organised on American soil and celebrates the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. There are exhibits from many countries and cultures, including Africans from Togo and Dahomey on display in all their ‘primitive’ splendour, to contrast them with the glittering achievements of American civilisation. From the Cape Colony there are ostrich, wool and mohair products on display.

  The biggest attraction, apart from the Viking ship built in Norway to specifications based on a model discovered near Sandefjord that had sailed from that country through the Great Lakes to Chicago, is the replica of a Kimberley diamond mine constructed by De Beers Diamond Corporation. It is more than two thousand feet tall. The company also shipped to Chicago, all the way from southern Africa, thousands of bags of original earth from the rich Kimberley diamond fields to be spread in the exhibit area, in which real diamonds worth more than a million dollars are seeded.

  That’s where the Zulus come in. They have been employed to guard the diamonds and can be seen prancing about in their skins and feather costumes, armed with shields and assegais. Besides acting as security guards, they also run the machine that washes the diamonds before they are polished and cut by lapidaries from Tiffany and Company.

  These are authentic Zulus who came on a ship to work at this international fair and will be sailing back home in November. Em-Pee is on his way to join them. He hopes to secure employment with the company and return with them to the Cape Colony at the end of the fair.

  ‘I want to return with you and Mavo,’ says Em-Pee.

  But Acol is not there. He was so engrossed in telling his tale he did not see her leave. He does not even know when she left. He might have been talking to himself all this time.

  ‘Acol!’

  He hears breaking twigs and walks in that direction. There she is, tiptoeing between the trees, camera at the ready as if it is a lethal weapon and she is a hunter. When she spots him she shushes him, creeps behind a tree, and then gives up in frustration.

  ‘You scared it away!’ she says. ‘I’m mad at you.’

  It is a beautiful way of being mad at him because she does not look mad at all. Not even frustrated any more. Instead she smiles, her smooth purple skin reflecting the glow of light that sneaks in between the trees.

  She is looking for the atoc bird, she says. It is quite elusive, but she has the patience. She has her whole life before her to look for the atoc.

  ‘How will you know when you find the atoc? How is it different from other birds?’

  ‘Atoc is a bird of my childhood.’

  She describes it with so much affection, shaping her hands to show its size, while supporting the camera with her arm against her breast. It is grey in colour, like some of the pigeons she has seen around here. She once thought one of them was an atoc. But it was not. An atoc has an orange beak and yellow cheeks. It has a snow-white chest bordered by black feathers.

  The atoc, what a delightful bird!

  He marvels at this. She is living proof of what she taught him: remembering externalises past experiences in the present. She is looking for an atoc, a bird of her memory. She will find the south Sudanese bird in the spring climes of Appalachian Ohio.

  ‘I want to help you find it,’ says Em-Pee.

  She finds this suggestion exciting and leads him to a spot under another tree,where she has her lace dress purse hanging on a low branch. She takes out a few photographs and shows him some where she almost caught the atoc. Em-Pee can see only leaves, rocks and even headstones of graves.

  But none has an atoc. He says so, and she chastises him for not being too bright.

  ‘I told you I didn’t catch the atoc. I almost caught it.’

  She gives him one picture that she says has an atoc in it.

  ‘There it is, sitting on a log.’

  Em-Pee can see the water, and the log floating on the pond. He cannot see any atoc though, unless one wants to be generous and call a dark-grey spot on a light-grey log an atoc. He will not lie to her. He confesses that perhaps he doesn’t have enough enlightenment at this point to see an atoc.

  ‘Here it is, man, preening itself on the log.’ She is getting exasperated.

  Em-Pee shakes his head, no. She breaks into a smile and promises that she will not rest till she gets the perfect shot that even he can see.

  ‘You can’t even see an atoc, and yet you say you want to take me to Africa?’

  ‘Yes, I want to go to Africa with you. You will teach me how to see atocs,’ he says, grateful that she has brought up the subject. ‘I will see as many atocs as you like.’

  She giggles, as if she is enjoying his desperation. ‘I must find an atoc.’

  ‘I said I will help you.’

  At this he takes her hand. She cringes slightly and gently tries to slide it out of his. He won’t let go, but instead grabs it with both hands, pleadingly. This makes her frantic, as if she is having a panic attack. She screams that he must leave her hand alone.

  He lets go and is shaken that his touch had thi
s effect on her. He has touched her before without any drama. She has touched him too. Why, she has even touched him in hidden places.

  ‘I must honour the memory of the harm inflicted on me,’ she says, walking away from him. She wants to go back to her ward.

  He will not let this go. He wants to know what it all means.

  Could this be the memory of the cage that must be honoured?

  ‘It is more than the cage. Much more,’ she says. ‘Maria-Magdalena must have told you. She said she would when she was trying to force me to stop seeing you.’

  It is all about the cards. The cards always make her shudder.

  The owner was a gambler and played them every weekend. When his fortunes plummeted, he played them on some weekdays as well – every day, some weeks. And she had to be there for every game. Even as she walks in the tranquil grounds of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, she can hear Maria-Magdalena’s voice ringing like a bell, ‘Dinkie the Dinka, time for cards!’

  When she hears that call, she gets confused. She must run to the pond, where it never reaches. She must look for the atoc in the water, on the grass, on the floating logs, on the leaves, until the ringing call has receded to silence in her head.

  It started as a joke when Monsieur Duval’s poker mates had gathered around the table, and the owner was on a losing streak. He had what he thought was a good hand to recoup his losses but had nothing to put in the pot. So he put in Dinkie the Dinka Princess.

  She was commanded to march to a guest room upstairs where the winner would have his way with her. She fought and kicked and bit the manservants who dragged her up the spiral staircase. She screamed to Maria-Magdalena to save her but she sat motionlessly in the kitchen, shutting out the screams with her own humming of a nursery jingle.

  Dinkie the Dinka Princess was repeatedly raped by the owner and sundry winners, who came in all shapes and sizes. Every time it happened she fought and scratched, even biting them with her teeth. That’s when she realised that bottom teeth, though so ayur – so undignified and shameful – can be a force for good.

  She was bruised and exhausted after each card game. But she also exhausted winners who would have their way only after a struggle.

  Soon they threatened to opt for money or property instead of her as a prize. That’s when the chaining began. Even as the game was going on, she would already be chained to the bed frame. It did not matter how many hours the game took, she had to lie there and wait. Sometimes only in the early hours of the morning would the winner enter the room and have his way with her. She fought still, despite being in chains. And lost. Always.

  Later she realised that her fierce fighting aroused some of them and made them enjoy her even more. She deprived them of that pleasure by lying still on the bed as they injected their death into her.

  Em-Pee allows his tears to flow freely. Yet she is smiling the most beatific smile, making his tears drench his face and shirt even more profusely.

  He will never get over the realisation that when she touched him in hidden places she was saving him from the disease.

  12

  Union-America Line – November 1893

  She is Nhialic She is God

  The heat threatens to send him running up onto the deck and then diving into the St Lawrence River. He is attending to four furnaces, feeding one with coal for about two minutes, then turning to the next. He thinks he knows how a pig feels when it is roasted on a spit. This will be the stoker’s lot every day for the coming weeks, until the Union-America Line steamship docks in Cape Town.

  Then he will walk free. He will no longer be beholden to anyone. It will be the end of his servitude to De Beers Diamond Corporation, which employed him at the World’s Columbian Exposition and paid for his passage back home, together with the rest of the Zulus, who now spend their time singing in steerage. It will also be the end of his servitude to the Union-America Line, which allowed him to take his son aboard provided he paid for his passage by working with the stokers.

  There were some problems with harbour officials in Chicago. They did not want him to take Mavo on board with him.

  ‘The boy is almost White,’ said an official. ‘We cannot allow him to take an American boy with him to Africa.’

  After a lot of arguing, presentation of documents, and intervention by the De Beers people, permission was granted – just when he was about to give up and return to New York with his son.

  After a four-hour shift he joins Mavo in steerage. He is a brooding boy, and Em-Pee hopes he will get over his being uprooted from the only life he has known in New York for an uncertain one in the land of his father. He was excited at first, particularly about the voyage. But confinement is beginning to get to him. It will be worse in days to come.

  Mavo is reading a book when Em-Pee sits next to him. Em-Pee is glad that his son has become bookish. He utters a few words of encouragement and tells him about the life he imagines awaits them in the rolling hills of kwaZulu. As soon as they touch that soil, Em-Pee will be dead and Mpiyezintombi Mkhize will be reborn.

  ‘Where we are going, no one knows Em-Pee. They only know Mpiyezintombi. Better start practising it. You’ll be lost if you call me Em-Pee.’ At this he chortles, and Mavo smiles.

  But the smile changes to concern when the haunted look he has occasionally seen on his father returns.

  ‘You know, Mavovo, sometimes we need to learn that we can love from a distance and do nothing about it. We don’t have to own what we love.’

  Mavo goes through the motions of agreeing with his father. He is only being polite. He has no idea what he is talking about.

  He is, of course, talking about Acol. It is the same thing that he told her in their final conversation at the Athens Lunatic Asylum before his departure for Chicago, when he finally gave up on her. When she remained calm and beautiful and resolute despite his begging. When she asked, ‘What you want me for, how is it different from what men have always wanted me for?’ and he responded, ‘It is different because I love you. I never said this to any woman – not even to my wife.’ And she laughed mockingly and said, ‘You should have heard the beautiful things they whispered in my ear as they tore me apart, injecting death into my person.’

  It is her defiance that he will always remember. She defied even God as she declared herself one. She stood there, in Em-Pee’s face, and said without rancour in her voice, ‘I am myself Nhialic! I am myself God! I go with no one but myself.’

  Em-Pee understood completely what she meant. She would not be rescued by a man. Instead she rescued herself by externalising memories of her childhood world and re-creating it in the vast wilderness of the asylum, using the power of her Jieng spiritual realm. Thus, she has regained her freedom.

  He and Mavo have regained their freedom too. Or are on a voyage towards that goal. Whether you choose to see it that way or not, it is a story with a happy ending.

  Acol will always be a strong presence in her absence. Like the God she is. She taught him how to externalise memory and make its object part of the present reality. She will therefore only cease to exist when he dies. Her mortality depends on his. Those lessons will come in handy throughout this voyage and in the life ahead.

  The end is always a journey.

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