The Heart of Redness: A Novel (33 page)

Camagu bubbles about his discovery of the
Jacaranda
. But he does not mention his shipboard romance. Dalton tells him the
Jacaranda
was a Greek cargo ship, which foundered in September 1971. The sailors were drunk, partying all the time. They had not been paid for six months, so they wrecked the ship.

“What were you doing at that remote place?” Dalton asks.

“Just exploring,” Camagu lies. “Just learning more about this lovely country.”

“Just exploring, eh? With that daughter of Zim?” Dalton chuckles naughtily.

Missis gives Camagu a disapproving look. He is by now used to her sneering attitude and does not pay any attention to it. He does not answer Dalton’s question either.

“I don’t know what he sees in that crude girl,” comments Missis, as if to herself.

Still Camagu does not answer. He just smiles politely.

“She is a rotten apple, that one. I am glad she no longer works here. I would have fired her long ago if it were not for John, who seems to be compassionate to the worst of these people,” continues Missis. “Take Xoliswa Ximiya, for instance. Now that’s a lady. Very educated. Polished. I don’t know why your friend dumped her, John.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear from village gossips,” says Camagu.

“You didn’t dump her then?” asks Missis incredulously.

“Hey, let’s not pry into the man’s affairs, dear,” says Dalton.

“There was no reason to dump her in the first place. There was never anything between us.”

He omits to add that Xoliswa Ximiya, like the village gossips, doesn’t seem to think so. She has been sending daily messages that she wants to see him. Cold and distant notes through schoolboys. Summoning him to her presence. One day, a messenger even arrives in the person of Vathiswa. He has been ignoring all these royal commands. And has been avoiding any path that passes near Qolorha-by-Sea Secondary School or Bhonco’s homestead. The messages are becoming more frantic by the day. They no longer sound like orders. They sound like entreaties. If she were not such a refined lady, she would have long since gone to his cottage to rout him out of his snakehole. But she is too proud for that. The last thing she wants is a showdown with that unschooled girl who, according to gossip, now openly frequents the cottage.

“She is a lady, that Miss Ximiya,” observes Missis as she serves them coffee and biscuits that were brought in by a maid. “Not like the red girl. I hear now that one is even cutting down trees.”

“That reminds me,” says Dalton. “How did the case go?”

“It hasn’t ended,” says Camagu curtly.

“She’s a crazy, that one! Fancy cutting down trees!” Dalton laughs.

“I too thought so, John. I thought she was mad. Until I heard her side of the story. She has a point, John.”

Dalton and Missis look at him closely, as if to make sure whether he too hasn’t lost it.

“You are aligned with destructive forces, Camagu,” says Dalton. “I hear that your women of the cooperative killed a swarttobie bird, the black oystercatcher. They said it was competing with them for mussels.”

“That was wrong,” admits Camagu. “I warned them against it. I told them that the African black oystercatcher is an endangered bird and they must never kill it again. It is just ignorance, John. I think we all need some education on these matters. All of us. Even you, John. Then we will understand why Qukezwa chopped down those trees.”

Camagu suggests that instead of having his verandah television play old movies that have no relevance to the people of Qolorha-by-Sea, he
should consider playing videos on developmental issues. Documentaries that will encourage community dialogue. It is important that people should start talking about things that affect their lives. The problem, of course, is where to find such videos.

Camagu is not aware that while he is busy drinking coffee with the Daltons, things are happening at Zim’s homestead. Hecklers and ululants have gathered once more, and are creating such a din that even the amahobohobo weaverbirds are reeling about and flying against one another.

Bhonco has resumed his offensive! To the abayiyizeli, the women whose greatest joy in life is to ululate, he has added the hecklers. They are young men whose greatest pleasure is to heckle at the slightest provocation. They have perfected heckling to the extent that they can heckle even when no one is talking. They have only to look at a person, imagine his speech in their heads, then heckle him. Bhonco has promised them beer brewed by the expert hand of NoPetticoat at the end of each day of heckling.

At this very moment, Qukezwa is giving birth in one of the rondavels. She is surrounded by the grandmothers who are village midwives. She is heaving and screaming. Ululants are ululating outside. Hecklers are heckling. Zim sits at the door of the rondavel, his head buried in his hands.

The gathering of the hecklers and ululants sees his pain and increases the volume.

“Try again, my child,” says a grandmother. “Push!”

“The head is already appearing,” says another grandmother.

She pushes once more. She hears the yelping laughter that Camagu insisted was not the baby’s but the giant kingfisher’s. The bloody thing crashes its way out. It immediately starts screaming. It is as though it wants to compete with the ululation outside, and the heckling.

“It is a boy,” says a grandmother.

“A boy,” says Qukezwa, forgetting the pain. “His name is Heitsi.”

“Heitsi!” shout the grandmothers in unison. “What kind of a name is that?”

It is ages since rivers of salt have run down the gullies of Bhonco’s face. Beautiful things have become estranged from his life since Camagu, son of Cesane, imprecated himself upon this village and became the bane of the Unbeliever’s family. And then the abaThwa came and took their dance, wrenching away the cord that connected him to essential pain. How will the Cult of the Unbelievers survive without the dance? The Unbelievers cannot afford to be marooned in this world, without occasionally traversing misty mountains and plains to the pains of the past.

And then there is Zim and his despicable Believers. Zim whose medicine has turned influential people like Dalton and the detestable Camagu to his side. Zim whose daughter has cast a spell on the spineless Camagu, wresting him away from the esteemed daughter of the Unbelievers. The very daughter who lives and is prepared to die for civilization. Zim who will soon be driven crazy by ululations and heckles, until he plunges down a cliff. Zim. Zim. Zim. It is a name that buzzes in his vengeful head.

And then there are the hadedah ibises that have now taken to loitering outside his pink rondavel, sharing corn with the hens and their broods. Although the ibises are bigger and uglier birds, the hens are no
longer bothered by them. Three or four of the accursed birds still follow him whenever he ventures out of the homestead. They hover above him clumsily, emitting their raucous laughter.

Beautiful things are hard to come by.

It is in the midst of the elder’s brooding on this dearth that Xoliswa Ximiya visits the homestead. He can sense that she is despondent, even though she wears a brave face. She tells her parents that she is earnestly looking for a job in the government.

“We thought you had forgotten about that,” says Bhonco.

“I thought I had forgotten about it too. I was resigned to staying here and building my school. But this place is not for me. There can be no growth for me here.”

“This place is for you. This is your village. You were born here. Your forefathers walked this land. If anyone must go, it is that Camagu!” shouts Bhonco.

“It has nothing to do with Camagu!” Xoliswa Ximiya shouts back.

“She wanted to go to the city long before Camagu came here,” agrees NoPetticoat.

“But she was no longer talking of it, NoPetticoat. She was no longer talking of it until that Camagu cast his evil shadow on our village.”

“Maybe she is right, Bhonco,” pleaded NoPetticoat. “Maybe we should allow her to go. Many young women from our village have gone to work in the cities. And they are not half as educated as Xoliswa.”

“You cannot allow me to go, mother. When I want to go, I will go. I am not a child anymore. I was not asking for your permission. I was informing you. When the school closes next week I am going to Pretoria to make personal applications. Many of my former schoolmates are high up in the ruling party. They will lobby for me. I must go because it works out much better when one is there. It is high time I went to live in more civilized places.”

“Do you hear what she is saying, NoPetticoat? And this is what you support?”

“She is a big girl, Bhonco. Let her go.”

Bhonco, son of Ximiya, storms out screaming, “The Believers have won again! They are taking my child away from the place where
her umbilical cord is buried . . . where she has made her name as the principal of the secondary school.”

“You have upset your father,” says NoPetticoat calmly.

“I can see that.”

“This Camagu, did you really love him?”

“It has nothing to do with Camagu, mother.”

“He is not worth it, you know?”

“He is not my business. My only concern is that he is taking this village back to the last century, and many people now seem to agree with him.”

“Maybe we have judged him too harshly,” says NoPetticoat deliberately. “Maybe there are indeed many different paths to progress.”

“How can you say that, mother?”

“The clothes that they make at the cooperative . . . they are so beautiful. The isikhakha skirts. The beaded ornaments. The handbags.”

“They are the clothes of the amaqaba, mother—of the red people who have not yet seen the light of civilization.”

“Oh, how I miss the beautiful isiXhosa clothes of the amahomba!”

Xoliswa Ximiya stares at her mother in disbelief. NoPetticoat has that distant look that speaks of a deep longing for what used to be. The silence is broken by Bhonco’s screams outside. Both women rush out.

The bees that have built their hive on the eaves of his four-walled tin-roofed ixande house are attacking him. The women shriek and open the door of the rondavel for him. He rushes in and they shut the door. He has numerous stings on his skin. His whole face is swelling fast and his eyes can no longer see. His scars are itching. He sits on the chair and moans, “How can the ancestors do this to me?”

“It is the bees, father, not the ancestors,” says Xoliswa Ximiya. “We’ll just have to take you to the clinic.”

Education has made this girl mad, thinks Bhonco. Has she forgotten that, according to the tradition of the amaXhosa, bees are the messengers of the ancestors? When one has been stung, one has to appease the ancestors by slaughtering an ox or a goat and by brewing a lot of sorghum beer.

“It must be that scoundrel Zim,” moans Bhonco. “He must have talked our common ancestor into sending me these bees. And the headless old man complied! Don’t they know? Bees are not for playing games of vengeance!”

But at this moment Zim’s thoughts are drifting a distance away from schemes of vengeance. They are with NoEngland, who resides in the Otherworld. He has been thinking of NoEngland for some days now. He misses her. He thinks that things would have been different if she were here. If she had not hurried to the world of the ancestors, leaving her husband and children in a world that has been so defiled by lack of belief. NoEngland has been in his mind all the time lately, to the extent that he has not touched his food. He just lies under his giant tree. He does not even hear the ululants and the hecklers. They are becoming discouraged because they are not making a dent in his indifference. They don’t know that nothing can penetrate his mind now, for it is occupied by NoEngland.

He does not even notice when Camagu comes and greets him. Camagu does not know what to do. He thinks that perhaps the old man is asleep. Yet his eyes are wide awake. And there is a smile on his face. He greets again. And again.

“I have come to see Qukezwa and the baby, old one,” Camagu says aloud, so that his voice can rise above the cacophony of ululations, heckles, and amahobohobo weaverbirds. The women who are fussing over Qukezwa and Heitsi in the rondavel hear him and appear at the door.

Ah, at last some people who might help. It is a week now since the new Heitsi was born to ululations and heckles. A week of searing loneliness for Camagu. He has been languishing alone in his cottage, pining for Qukezwa, and reflecting on what this place has done to him. It has rendered him unrecognizable to himself. He used to be a man-about-town. A regular at Giggles. But he hasn’t had a tipple since he came to Qolorha-by-Sea. He has also found himself losing interest in cigarettes. Even his famous lust has deserted him. Since coming here he has only known a woman—in the biblical sense, that is—in his messy dreams.
His old self would have taken advantage of the raw talent that he encounters every day in this village. Lots of talent. Vathiswa. Even the waitresses and charwomen at the Blue Flamingo. It is all because of the effect that Qukezwa has had on him. The effect that has even cleansed NomaRussia out of his life, out of his recurrent dreams.

He pined and pined in his cottage, until he gathered enough strength to walk to Zim’s homestead with the intention of pleading to be allowed a glimpse of the woman and her child.

“You cannot see Qukezwa and the baby,” screeches a woman at the door.

“Did she say so? Did she say she doesn’t want to see me?” asks Camagu.

“Don’t you see this reed? It means that no man is allowed into this house.”

She is pointing at a reed that is jutting out from the roof just above the door.

“He grew up in the land of the white man. He does not know that a reed like this means there is a newborn baby in the house and no man is allowed,” observes another woman sympathetically.

“But he is the father of the child,” says another one. “Fathers are not barred from the reed.”

“Who says he is the father? The grandmothers said Qukezwa was a virgin.”

More women come out of the house and join the debate, completely ignoring Camagu, who just stands there looking foolish.