The Heart of Redness: A Novel (32 page)

“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 something 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.

That, in fact, is where the fire started, a tottering old woman informs him.

The wind is making things worse. It had been a cool and quiet day when they were at the inkundla, but all of a sudden there is a raging wind that is spreading the fire and frustrating the efforts of the people who are trying to put it out.

“What happened,
makhulu?”
asks Camagu.

“Go ask NoGiant,” says the old lady angrily. “It is her carelessness that has left me homeless. And this unpredictable weather of Qolorha! It is because there is a lot of witchcraft here. It is the land of Nongqawuse.”

The battle against the fire is eventually lost. A number of houses have been burnt to the ground.

The fire is a setback to the cooperative society. NoGiant has lost everything, including the sewing machine and a pile of material and beads that belonged to the cooperative.

Camagu regrets ever asking the women to work from home rather than in the room he had allocated for that purpose at his sea cottage. He thought they were being more productive at home. At his cottage
MamCirha and NoGiant spent a lot of their time gossiping. Or talking about their cesarean operations. They compared the scars, paying particular attention to their sizes and their shapes. They exclaimed that the scars never really bothered them, even when the weather was bad. “I often hear people say that when the weather is cloudy or cold the scars itch. I would be lying if I said mine did the same,” NoGiant would say. “Mine too. It never itches at all. I always forget that it is even there,” MamCirha would respond.

At their homes they are on their own. Their husbands toil in the mines of Johannesburg and the Free State, and the children are either at school or in the veld looking after cattle. There is no one to gossip with, so productivity increases.

The following day Camagu decides to go to Ngcizele to see NoGiant, who is receiving temporary shelter under MamCirha’s roof.

“I will come with you,” says Qukezwa. “I will show you where she lives.”

“I know where she lives,” replies Camagu. He really does not want her to come with him. He is still uncomfortable when people see them together and point fingers and giggle. “Remember I went there a few months ago when MamCirha had her misfortune?”

Misfortune seems to dog the women of Camagu’s cooperative. MamCirha had fallen asleep while breast-feeding her baby, the one who had caused the famous cesarean scar. Her huge breasts had suffocated it and it died. Camagu had gone to her house to pass his condolences, and then later to attend the funeral. He went again with Dalton to talk members of her family into some form of reconciliation when they were accusing her of murdering her own baby so that she would be free to gallivant around making money at the cooperative society. She valued money more than her child, they said.

“I still want to come,” insists Qukezwa. “They must get used to seeing us together, and talk until their tongues are twisted. Unless you want to chicken out.”

He does not understand how she is able to read his thoughts so accurately, and to put his fears into words.

Early in the morning they walk to Ngcizele, a village that lies across deep gorges.

NoGiant is still very shaken. After insisting that she wants to talk to Camagu alone, without Qukezwa, she tells him how the fire started. Her husband, who was on a brief holiday from the mines, demanded his conjugal rights. She assured him that she was prepared to give him as much conjugal rights as his body was capable of taking, provided he took a bath first.

That made him furious.

“You think that just because you now make all this money running around with educated people I am no longer good enough for you?” he yelled.

He was pouring paraffin all over the rondavel while ranting and raving about her unreasonable demand that he should wash his body. Since when have conditions ever been set before he could enjoy the pleasures of marriage? Where was the bath when he paid his father’s cattle for her? What gives her, a mere woman, the right to pass judgment on the state of his cleanliness or lack thereof?

He set the house ablaze.

“Where is he now?” asks Camagu.

“The police got him. They are charging him with arson.”

On their way back home, Camagu briefs Qukezwa on the cause of the fire. He tells her he is disturbed that the success of the cooperative society is causing its members so many problems with their families.

“You should not worry yourself about that,” says Qukezwa. “Men are insecure when women make more money. It makes women more independent. Men will just have to get used to it.”

She leads him down to the sea; this, she says, is the shortest route between Qolorha and Ngcizele. But what she wants him to see is a shipwreck, the
Jacaranda
. She tells him that it got lost at sea many years before she was born, and crashed against the rocks of the wild coast. All the white people from the boat were saved. But they spoke no English, nor any other language known to the people of Ngcizele. Her father believed it was a Russian ship, which was more than a century late. It
was during the sufferings of the Middle Generations, when people were looking to be saved.

She clambers up the skeleton of the ship, and perches herself on what remains of the railings of the deck. He is scared that they will break and she will have a rude fall. But she is in too reckless a mood to care. A gust of wind almost blows her over. She lets go of her red blanket. It splashes into the water and starts sailing away on the waves. She screeches in laughter as she remains in her flimsy dress. It is clinging to her body for dear life. Her body is full. Her stomach is fuller.

He stands at the keel and appeals to her to come down before she hurts herself. She dares him to come up.

A bird laughs:
wak-wak kiririri!
They laugh with it, competing to see who will produce the closest imitation. Their eyes search for it. But they can’t find it.

“That is uthekwane, the hammerkop,” says Qukezwa.

“No, that is
uxomoyi
, the giant kingfisher,” says Camagu.

“Man of the city, what makes you think you can argue with me about birds?”

The bird hovers over them, and perches on the mast. It is a long-beaked bird with fine white spots on black. The breast is brown on white. It certainly has no hammerhead, for it is the giant kingfisher.

“How did you know? It does sound like uthekwane!”

“I have the best of teachers: you.”

She loves to hear this. She laughs so much that the kingfisher flies away yelping its own laughter.

“You are cleverer than you look, man of the city. Come here and kiss me. Don’t be such a coward.”

He gathers courage. He might as well be reckless. He makes his way up the skeleton of the ship and joins her on the railings. He kisses her. Just a shy peck. She takes his hand and places it on her belly. Blood pumps fast and hot in his body.

“What do you feel?” she asks.

“It’s kicking like there is no tomorrow.”

“It’s laughing! I can hear it laugh!”

“It’s the uxomoyi bird, silly.”

Late in the afternoon Camagu goes to Vulindlela Trading Store. This time his eyes do not wander around looking for something that will ease his pining. He pines no more. He just needs somebody who will help him contain his unseemly effervescence. Dalton will serve that purpose. Dalton’s feet are firmly planted on the ground. Although there are still some traces of tension in their relationship, things are returning to normal between them. He joins Dalton in his office, where he is relaxing with a magazine. Missis is busy with some paperwork.