The Heart of Redness: A Novel (24 page)

“I say it is an insult to the people of Qolorha-by-Sea,” Xoliswa Ximiya screeches. “My people are trying to move away from redness, but you are doing your damnedest to drag them back.”

“To you, Xoliswa, the isikhakha skirt represents backwardness,” says Camagu defensively. “But to other people it represents a beautiful artistic cultural heritage.”

Camagu is the only one in the village who calls Xoliswa Ximiya just by her first name—besides her parents, of course. This is one of the things that have fueled rumors that something is cooking between them. This, and the fact that they argue all the time. And then there are the visits to her house in the schoolyard, which sometimes take place in the evening. Others believe that he has slept there on occasion, although no one can vouch to have seen him with their own eyes.

“Even in magazines people wear isikhakha,” says Vathiswa. Although she is known as Xoliswa Ximiya’s lackey, she feels that this time, in the presence of all these honorable guests, she must contribute her little piece of wisdom as honestly as she can. But Xoliswa Ximiya’s glaring eyes silently reprimand her for her treachery.

“It is true,” says Vathiswa, asserting her independence. “Even on television I saw some cabinet ministers wearing isikhakha at the opening of parliament.”

“It does not matter if the president’s wife herself wore isikhakha,” says Xoliswa Ximiya dismissively. “It is part of our history of redness. It is a backward movement. All this nonsense about bringing back African traditions! We are civilized people. We have no time for beads and long pipes!”

The curse of redness!

It all started with the people of Johannesburg. When they heard that Camagu had not gone to America after all, but was hiding on the wild coast of the Eastern Cape, they sent messages that he should buy them traditional isiXhosa costumes. These were becoming very popular among the glitterati and sundry celebrities of the city of gold since
the advent of the African Renaissance movement spearheaded by the president of the country.

Camagu saw this as an opportunity for his cooperative society to expand its activities to the production of traditional isiXhosa costumes and accessories such as beaded pipes and shoulder bags, to be marketed in Johannesburg. His partners, NoGiant and MamCirha, were keen on the idea. After all, harvesting the sea for imbhaza and imbhatyisa did not earn them that much. They even invited NoManage and No-Vangeli to join the cooperative, but these cohorts of Dalton’s were too busy milking gullible tourists with their displays and performances of isiXhosa culture.

When these activities reached the ears of Xoliswa Ximiya, she was not amused. Her lack of amusement has continued to this day, and is now showing itself at her host’s housewarming party.

Vathiswa looks quite rueful for contradicting her mentor. After her intervention, the other guests feel free to stand with Xoliswa Ximiya and become vocal about the matter. Those whose views fall in line with Camagu’s wisely keep quiet. John Dalton knows how to tread carefully at times like these. He keeps his opinion to himself.

“What can we say about a man who believes in a snake?” Xoliswa Ximiya sneers.

“It is precisely because I was visited by Majola that my fortunes have changed for the better. The house . . . the business . . .”

Camagu does not wait for Xoliswa Ximiya’s rejoinder. He excuses himself and goes outside to join the villagers who are sitting on the verandah eating meat and drinking beer. He would have liked them—especially elders like Bhonco—to sit at the table inside the house with the rest of high society. But they refused. They said the custom was that they enjoyed their feasts under the trees while the “teachers” sat in the house. The best compromise that Camagu could reach was that they should at least sit on the verandah.

“Hey, teacher,” cries NoPetticoat. “I hear now you are sewing skirts.”

“You can laugh as much as you like, Mam’uNoPetticoat, but you will swallow your laughter as soon as you see those women who have joined the cooperative society getting rich,” says Camagu.

“Those women, teacher,” teases Bhonco, son of Ximiya, “do their husbands who work in the mines of Johannesburg know that they are running around with you here?”

“Very soon those women will be earning more than their husbands in the mines,” Camagu boasts.

“In that case you can count me in,” says NoPetticoat. “I am tired of cleaning the bottoms of the children of white people at the Blue Flamingo.”

Everyone can see that beer has already run into NoPetticoat’s head. Not only is she unsteady, but she has become quite vociferous.

“You, NoPetticoat? What a laugh!” says Bhonco.

“You don’t think I can do it, Bhonco?” challenges NoPetticoat. “You don’t think I can work with beads?”

“What would Xoliswa say?” asks Bhonco.

Everyone agrees that Xoliswa Ximiya would not like that at all. Bhonco and NoPetticoat would not want to make Xoliswa Ximiya unhappy.

“Especially now that she has built you that lovely ixande house,” adds Camagu, making sure that the sting of his remark is felt. He has learned that here at Qolorha-by-Sea a man who does not hit back becomes the playing ground of other men . . . and women.

People mumble that it is unbecoming for this Camagu, son of Cesane, to direct such snide remarks at his prospective father-in-law. Some ask how Bhonco can be his prospective father-in-law when the man has not even asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

“How do you know he has not asked?” asks a woman. “You do not know the things that happen in other people’s homesteads.”

“We would know. We would know,” says a man. “A daughter’s hand in marriage is never asked in secret. It becomes a public occasion.”

They all shut up when NoPetticoat glares at them disapprovingly. It is fortunate that Camagu does not hear what they are talking about from his position near the door.

“You see, son of Cesane,” says Bhonco in a hurt voice, “not all of us are rich like you. Not all of us can afford to buy sea cottages like this one that we are warming today.”

Camagu apologizes and says he did not mean to sting the elders with words. He did not buy this sea cottage because he is rich. When Dalton told him that it was for sale when the owner emigrated to Australia, he tried very hard to raise money to buy it. He went to banks from Butterworth to East London, but they all refused to give him a bond, for they said he was unemployed. He pleaded with John Dalton to stand surety for him, but he refused. “Such things spoil friendship,” he said.

It was only after he sold his car that he had the money to put down as a deposit, and only after he showed the bank the accounts of the cooperative society that they agreed to give him a mortgage. They decided that he was self-employed rather than unemployed.

“This son of Cesane,” says NoPetticoat, laughing mockingly, “they say he has learning that surpasses even that of our daughter. He has come after many years across the seas. But what is he doing loitering in the village? Of what use are his long letters? At least our daughter has done something for her parents. Is he able to do anything for his parents when he runs around catching imbhaza and imbhatyisa with women, and sewing skirts and beads?”

Camagu ignores the old woman. But others will not let the matter rest. Some praise his cottage in hope that he will take out more beer. Indeed, they say, here he will live like a white man. He even has taps of water inside the house, in the kitchen and the bathroom. His toilet is inside the house, unlike the pit latrines at their homesteads.

“Don’t even mention water,” says Bhonco. “He has all this water in every room while our communal water taps have been closed! Now our wives have to go to wells far away, or to the rivers.”

“We should be asking you why the taps are closed, son of Ximiya,” says another old man. “You are on the water committee, are you not?”

“Ask Dalton, not me,” says Bhonco defensively. “He and his Believers closed the water. Or ask this son of Cesane.”

“No. Not me,” says Camagu. “I am not on the water committee. No one ever elected me there.”

“No one ever elected you in any of these quarrels between the Believers and Unbelievers. Yet you have chosen a side,” says Bhonco.

“Hey, John, come out here,” Camagu calls into the house. “I am not going to be a martyr for your sins.”

John Dalton walks out. He seems relieved to be rescued from the harangue of the intellectuals in the house. But his face soon changes when he realizes that he is in for interrogation out here. The people want to know why the water taps have been closed.

“You know very well why they are closed, my mothers and fathers,” says Dalton. “For many months now you have not paid for the water. You know that those water pumps have to be maintained, and it takes money to maintain them. It takes money to buy diesel too.”

“But some of us have been paying regularly ever since the communal taps were constructed,” pleads a woman.

“It is true, some of you have been paying,” admits Dalton. “But most of you have not been paying. The taps shall remain closed until all of you have paid.”

“It is unfair. We suffer for the sins of those who have not paid.”

“We open the water just for you, even those who have not paid will get it. It is up to you to see to it that your neighbors pay so that everyone can get water.”

“What about you and Camagu? You have water.”

“Because we have paid and ours are not communal taps. Those who can afford to have taps that go straight to their homesteads and have paid for them continue to get water.”

“It is a plot of the Believers!” shouts Bhonco. “I want everyone to know that I disagreed with this closing of the taps at the committee meetings. I disagreed completely. But I was outvoted by the Believers!”

“It is like this election thing,” says NoPetticoat. “We thought things were going to be better. But look who they put in to run our affairs: people we don’t know. People from Butterworth who know nothing about our life here.”

This is a sore point for the villagers. When local elections came a few years back, people thought that at last they were going to run their own affairs. But the ruling party had different ideas. It imposed its own people nominated by party bosses from some regional headquarters far away from Qolorha. And the villagers did not know these candidates.
As a result many people refused to vote, even though they were supporters of the party. The same thing happened at the last general election, and it will happen again at the next local election unless people learn to fight for their rights.

“It is the same at the provincial and national level too. Leadership is imposed from above,” says Dalton. “But I do not see what that has to do with the water taps. The water committee was not imposed on anyone. It was elected by the villagers.”

“Don’t even talk, Dalton,” says Bhonco. “You have messed up our lives. You and your Believers. Now we can’t even cut our own trees.”

“That is unfair,” says Camagu. “You all know it is not John’s law. It is the law of the land. And it is for your benefit.”

“What benefit?” Bhonco fumes. “Our forefathers lived to be gray-beards without imposing such stupid laws on themselves.”

“Perhaps you need to learn more about your forefathers,” says Dalton. “King Sarhili himself was a very strong conservationist. He created Manyube, a conservation area where people were not allowed to hunt or chop trees. He wanted to preserve these things for future generations.”

“Don’t tell us about Sarhili,” cries Bhonco. “He was a foolish king. A king of darkness. That is why he instructed his people to follow Nongqawuse!”

The argument is broken by the arrival of Zim. Everyone bursts out laughing. Zim looks very strange. It is as if he does not belong to this world. He has shaved off his eyebrows. And he has cocooned himself inside a red blanket, without any of the beautiful ornaments for which he is known far and wide. There is not even a single strand of beads. His feet are bare. No shoes. No anklets.

“I greet you, children of the amaGcaleka clan, even though you welcome me with the rudeness of your laughter,” says Zim, sitting down among his peers.

“What have you done to yourself, Tat’uZim?” asks Camagu. “You were not like this yesterday when I saw you.”

“It is the new look of the Believers, in accordance with the teachings of Nonkosi, the prophetess of the Mpongo Valley,” explains Zim.

“What happened to Nongqawuse now?” asks NoPetticoat laughing.

“Oh, she is still there all right. But she is not the only prophet, you know. We Believers have a number of prophets. Nonkosi taught her followers to shave their eyebrows so as to distinguish themselves from the Unbelievers.”

Zim is clearly taking the war to new heights. He says it came to him through the birds that he had neglected some practices of the Believers of old. Maybe that’s why his son left and never came back. From now on he is going to shave his eyebrows.

His discovery of Nonkosi, the eleven-year-old prophetess of the Mpongo Valley, has injected new life into his belief. He has now adopted a new set of rituals that combine the best from the two denominations. For instance, he takes regular enemas and emetics to cleanse himself, as he comes into contact with Unbelievers like Bhonco on a regular basis. This ukurhuda ritual is a basic tenet of the teachings of the daughter of Kulwana.

All the while Bhonco is shaking his head pityingly.

“A person who does not get any pension from the government can shake his head until it flies off his neck,” says Zim, not looking at Bhonco.

“How foolish can people be!” rejoins Bhonco.

“How foolish can people be!” echoes NoPetticoat.

“If Unbelievers have their rituals, there is no reason why we cannot have our own too,” says Zim. “If they can induce sadness in their lives, there is no reason why we should not purify our bodies and our souls by purging and vomiting.”

“Our rituals don’t leave a stink!” shouts Bhonco.

“Your rituals are not even your own,” Zim shouts back. “You stole them from the abaThwa!”

“The abaThwa people don’t dance around to invoke grief! Grief is our thing, and no one else’s.”