Hunger Eats a Man (7 page)

“Johnson is exploiting us,” Priest starts as he puts his lunch box on the kitchen table. “He wants us to dig two hundred holes for R16.”

MaDuma's disappointment turns to anger. This anger is not directed at anyone in particular but to life itself. But now that Priest tells her about the conditions under which they have to work, MaDuma thinks he has returned because he does not want to dig two hundred holes for R16. She is a sufferer from high blood pressure, referred to as “high-high”. When she is displeased, she feels hot and sweats.

“In times like these!” MaDuma starts, breathing heavily, “In times like these, a real man would dig three hundred holes for R10.”

When Priest notices his wife's deteriorating temper, he thanks himself for having put his name on the list. He is aware of what his wife is thinking. If he does not clarify the matter soon, the situation could be worse.

“We are going to start work tomorrow. Exactly at seven, we will start digging,” Priest tells his wife, and watches as her face changes for the better and her breathing speed returns to normal.

She pronounces a long “Huuuu” and turns her head sideways, thus betraying her happiness at receiving the news. “I knew you would do the right thing,” she says with a smile. “You are a real man!”

When Priest and his fellow workers go to work the following day, they sit more freely on the truck since many people have decided to starve rather than be slaves for Johnson. The work is very hard in the fields. They work from seven to five without getting enough rest. Most people, including Priest, fail to dig two hundred holes. Only four people manage to dig the required number. Johnson does not complain. He also does not commend those who succeed. He only urges his induna to record the number of holes each person has dug.

Priest finds the work they have to do very hard. He sees their situation as nothing but slavery. He respects those who have decided against taking Johnson's work. He hates his wife for forcing him to do this farm work. But it is not really his wife. He knows how she was
when he was still working at the bacon factory and earning a good salary there. She was kind to him. Then he lost his job and they started to suffer. His family did not know hunger when he was working at the bacon factory. They did not know there would come a time when they would hanker for meat. Now all that has gone and hunger has taken over.

Yes. It is hunger that has forced him into this slavery. Not his wife. If they did not have to do without food, he would not be working here. His wife would not have forced him to go. It is the hunger that has made her think the unthinkable and be so demanding.

On the first day of work Priest does not eat his supper. When he has had his bath, he throws himself on the bed, hoping to rest. The next thing he hears is the voice of his wife telling him it is time for him to wake up and go to work. Priest drags himself to the bath and leaves his home for another day of hard work with his muscles still stiff from yesterday's work.

Yet he works as if he feels nothing. He has given himself to it. If he has to be a slave for Johnson in order to survive, so be it. But the anger inside him is strong. Why is it that they have to suffer like this while other people live better? Why did they vote only to lose their jobs, to suffer from hunger that forces them into this slavery? He does not want to attribute it to anyone or anything. But he, like everybody in his position, knows that something is wrong.

Priest and many others are as unhappy on their first pay day as they are to be for the next fourteen months in which they work for Johnson. Priest earns R225 for twenty-four days of hard work. Many others earn almost the same. Only a few come close to R384, the amount earned for R16 a day. Priest listens sadly as his fellow workers sing on their way back home. They do not sing because they are contented and happy. Their singing is a way of coming to terms with their situation.

When Priest arrives home on the first pay day, the look on her husband's face tells MaDuma that something is wrong.

“Oh God, he did not pay you,” the woman says in a troubled tone.

“He did pay us nothing.” Priest is very tired and seems to hate everything around him. “Here!” he gives his money to his wife. “This is what I have been working for all this time.”

MaDuma cannot help smiling when she sees the closed, brown envelope given to her. Priest has never before given her all his wages, so she is pleased. She does not look at the writing outside that states the name of the payee and the amount paid, so she is greatly surprised and angry when she counts the money and finds that it is only R225.

“Is this all you got?” she asks in disbelief.

Priest does not want to talk. “I'm tired,” he says. “I want to sleep.”

“But you haven't got your food yet.” MaDuma feels sorry for her husband when she sees how depressed he is. “Let me get your food first,” she pleads.

“If it's pap and potatoes, don't bother.”

“Ah! Go to sleep then.”

It's one of those days of fatigue when Priest has been toiling like a slave at Johnson's. Right now he is sitting on the sofa in the living room – watching without seeing his tiny, black-and-white television – while in his mind he is in bed having a quiet, dreamless sleep. The fact that he is still here is proof enough he has no control over his own body any more. He intended to go to bed thirty minutes ago but his bones and muscles did not comply. They seem to be on strike or something.

Thinking of strikes, why is it that he and his fellow slaves of Johnson do not engage in a strike? Or maybe usurp the farm, like the animals did in one of Sandile's novels he has read? What was it called? Animal something.
Animal Kind
perhaps. Or
Animal Pride
. It doesn't really matter what the title of the book is. They might call theirs
Slave's Pride
or something. But that would be like shitting under a tree that gives you shade when the scorching sun threatens to burn you to death. Not a single one of his fellow slaves would even consider that. Didn't they agree to being slaves because they preferred that to watching their children die?

As such a dialogue takes place in Priest's mind, Sandile steals inside the living room and seats himself on the sofa on the right-hand side of his father. Priest can tell from his expression that there is something the boy wants to say. Usually Sandile does not spend time in the living room with his family. He normally stays alone in his room, reading
his books. Priest is too tired to say anything, leaving the boy to decide on his own whether to speak or not. After four minutes, Sandile seems to have garnered the required vocabulary and confidence for him to speak. “I regret to inform you, Father, that blood will be spilled in this place of ours.”

Priest hears this as if in a dream or at a distance, and when he has managed to make sense of the disconnected sounds, he suddenly recovers from his half-sleep and the fatigue goes away. He threatens to stand up as he says, “Hhe?” Priest hopes he did not hear his son correctly.

“I say blood is going to be spilled in this area.”

“You are mad,” Priest says with a strange suddenness and then asks, “Why would you think that?” Priest's body has forgotten about the strike and the tiredness of toiling on the farm. He is now rejuvenated.

“Because I know, Father.” As they continue talking, Sandile is getting more and more confident. The fear of talking to his father diminishes as he speaks.

Priest may have recovered from fatigue, but he has no time for nonsense. “You are young and senseless, what do you know?”

“Did you hear about the woman who materialised at Hlanzeni?” Sandile answers his father's question with another.

“What woman? Materialised?” Priest asks in utter confusion.

“See? You don't know everything yourself. Some things pass you by even though you are old,” Sandile says in jest, but Priest is annoyed. This is not a proper way for a son to talk to his father. Not if that father is a priest.

“When last did you read your Bible, Sandile? Hhe?” Priest shouts.

Sandile stammers before answering. “It's … it's been a … a while, Father.” Now he gets his strength back. “But I thought we are not talking about the Bible. We are talking about the blood that is going to flow in this land. We are talking about the pain and the tears, Father. Not some old book without meaning.”

Priest sends an annoyed glance at him, his teeth clenched. His eyes
have become red. What is this boy saying about the Word of God? His God? Who is this boy in the first place? Isn't he nothing but a dog who depends on him for everything? Priest contemplates punishment and suddenly changes his mind. No use punishing him now. He has not been aware that this boy is growing up and developing his own mind – a mind that is not only influenced by the good tidings of the Lord and the Holy Ghost. The evil forces of Lucifer also influence him. To Priest, things are always divided in two. Life for him is either black or white, good or evil and sacred or profane. His son seems ready to leave the good that is his home for the evil represented by the secular world outside.

Having decided against corporal punishment, Priest orders his son to reconnect himself with the Word of God. He can't give him up to the forces of evil without a fight. “Go and read Exodus 20, verses one to seventeen. Read it aloud three times,” Priest roars like a wounded lion. His voice is vibrating with anger, and Sandile need not be told that he will brook no contradiction. “I will be listening and counting.”

“But, Father, I know those verses by heart. You used to make me sing them,” Sandile complains.

“Certainly you have forgotten them. It's been a while since you last recited them. So do as I tell you!”

Instead of contradicting his father again, Sandile stands up and starts reciting the verses like he did when he was younger: “God spoke and these were his words.” Somehow his voice trembles in fear. This act reminds him of his days in junior primary where they were made to recite verses and were punished if they got them wrong. This is what his father did to him too. “I am your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

As Sandile utters these verses, Priest's mind is taken back to his thoughts about his own slavery and that of his fellow workers. God really has liberated them from the slavery of apartheid and white domination and oppression. But something has gone wrong along the way. Perhaps Moses and his brother Aaron decided to join forces
with the Canaanites and the Philistines. It is amazing that the Bible was written so long ago and so far away but it speaks directly to them. Priest and other poor people of Ndlalidlindoda are the Israelites on their way from Egypt.

Priest's mind comes back when his son recites, “You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses His name …”

“Hear that?” Priest intervenes gladly. It is as if God has suddenly appeared to support him. “The Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name. You should get that into your head.”

Fatigue has completely vanished from Priest's system. His son's blasphemous talk has really boosted his energy. But now, as he continues talking, his voice is calmer, “It is a bad thing, son, to talk badly about the Bible, as if you are talking about your friend. The Bible is God's own words. It is the manifestation of God's words and if you defy it, you defy God Himself and you will not win. You can never win.”

As he talks now, there is no longer anger in his voice. Perhaps the fact that his son has kept the good words inside him all this time is what pacifies him. This calls forth the book of Deuteronomy to his mind: “These commandments which I give you this day are to be kept in your heart; you shall repeat them to your sons, and speak them indoors and out of doors. When you lie down and when you rise.” Yes. This is exactly what he has done. He is glad his son has kept the good words in his heart. But does he understand and believe them? Well, that is another question. God will have to see to what happens inside his son's head. He cannot.

“Except …” Sandile says after a while, making sense of his father's words.

“Except what?”

“Except, if I am as powerful and cunning as Jacob, I may be able to beat God.”

The anger in Priest returns tenfold. He looks at his son with trepidation, wondering if Satan has not taken over his son's thinking. All
the words he knows seem unable to convey what is inside him, so he decides to remain quiet.

It is his son who speaks again after a while. “Do you entirely believe in the Bible, Father?”

That Priest can answer, even in deep sleep. “Yes. Body and soul.” Saying the words provides him with a tinge of happiness. Lucifer may have got his son, but he certainly hasn't got him.

“So you will agree with me,” Sandile continues. “You will agree with me that if God were visible and in human form it would be possible for a strong person to beat him?” Sandile cannot help smiling.

His father darkens with rage. “Would you tell me what kinds of books you have been reading lately? Because you seem to me to be heading straight to the dark side with those heretic thoughts and questions.” Priest feels hot now. Being in the same room with Lucifer is no easy matter. Sandile seems to be blind to his father's anger. Or doesn't he care?

“No, Father. I haven't turned to the dark side. As for the books I read, the Bible is still the first among them.” He pauses again, lest he begins to laugh. He then continues, “I am pleased to tell you that I enjoy its poeticality. Whoever wrote it is a genius. They had great knowledge of literature at its best.”

“Oh God, what have I done?”

“But why do you lament like that, Father? Don't you know that the character who is Jacob in the Bible fought with the other who is God and won?” Another laugh disturbs him. “Well, he did not actually win. It was some kind of a draw,” Sandile says, and watches in wonder the transformation in his father.

Priest's face looks as if he is going to explode. “You know what?” he says, when his breathing has slowed. “Let's stop this conversation because you certainly are someone I do not know.” His voice is full of sadness as he stands up, getting ready to leave. “If you want to go to Gehena you are free to do so, but please don't take me with you. I do my best to be able to get to heaven when my time is over. So, as they
say, ‘Stay away from me, Lucifer!'” He rushes out of the living room. Mentioning Satan's name makes Priest believe that he may indeed be with them.

Sandile laughs when his father has disappeared down the passage. I wonder why people like Father claim the Bible is God's Word but when you mention some verses they act as if you have become a follower of Satan, he thinks.

After a while Sandile leaves the living room. He goes to his bedroom, but this is no time for him to sleep. Instead, he decides to read his poetry. Reading his own work completes him somehow. He may not be published, but that doesn't matter. He will always write, because for him the act of writing and reading what he has written is therapeutic. He often wonders how people who do not write fiction manage to deal with the complexities of life and their suffering.

Although today I'm like this;

Clad but in tattered sacks

My butt's laughing behind my back

Torches telling everyone I'm a hobo.

Don't look down upon me.

I was not born like this.

Although now I am like this

Have no education, no civilisation

The languages of power

I do not speak.

Do not laugh at me.

I too am of blood.

The fact that he is the one who wrote what he is reading makes it even more of a diverting read. Even hunger shies away if he is reading his work. Perhaps one day he will be published, but for now his writings are for his own amusement and healing.

It is ten minutes to eleven when he finally retreats to his bed. The worries of the day are now out of his system. He can have a nice, peaceful sleep. But before he falls asleep, his father's knock disturbs him. “Sandile! Wake up! Open the door.”

Sandile can tell by the sound of his voice that his father has been in a deep sleep. Whatever has woken him up? An unpleasant dream perhaps? But his father has never come to him for comfort before. He hurries and opens the door for his father, whose eyes are reddened by sleep.

“Tell me about the blood,” Priest says, still groping to find Sandile's bed. The words come as a great surprise to the boy.

“Father, are you sure you have woken up?”

“Yes, Sandile,” Priest answers. “I'm here in your room. Just tell me about the blood you said is going to be spilled in the area.” Priest is now seated on his son's single bed.

“I don't think it's a good idea, Father …”

“Just tell me!” Priest snaps, and Sandile realises that this man who is half asleep means business.

“I don't know where to start,” he begins, and then stops again, his mouth showing that he is trying. “Is it okay if I start by asking about the woman of Hlanzeni? Have you heard anything about her?”

“No,” Priest says proudly, “I know nothing about her and I want you to tell me everything you know. Everything.”

“They say that last week Sunday the people at Hlanzeni woke up to find there was a new house where there had been none the previous day.” He stops and steals a furtive glance at his father. Priest's mouth is agape with wonder and intrigue. “It is said that the chief then sent a delegation of men to find out what was going on. When they got there, the men found an old woman who was busy sweeping the floor. She was doing nothing except sweeping the floor and it looked to those men as if that was all she did. Isn't that strange, Father?”

“Not as strange as the house suddenly appearing where there has been none the previous day,” Priest claps his hands. “But it is strange indeed.”