The Heart of Redness: A Novel (7 page)

The following week Twin delivered male and female figures, carved exactly as Dalton had shown him. Dalton bought a number of the wooden figures and displayed them on his glass counters. Even today there are hundreds of them in the store, and tourists who come to see where the wonders of Nongqawuse happened buy them.

Zim was proud of his son’s talent. He felt that it would work in the Believers’ favor in their war against the Unbelievers. He repeated the history of Twin to everyone who cared to listen.

“This child,” he said, “worked in Centani selling petrol at a filling station. Then he got very ill with fits. He was also delirious. His ancestor, Twin, visited him in his dreams, and told him to carve people out of wood and he would get well. He carved the beautiful people that you see in Dalton’s store, and got well.”

But Twin did not live up to his father’s expectations. He became a renegade who refused to follow Zim in the battle to preserve the rituals of the Believers. He decided to think like all ordinary people, to follow trends set by others, and to share the same ambition as all the young men of the village: to work in the gold mines of Johannesburg and the Free State.

Zim lost the battle and let him go. He has not seen him since. He has heard that his son has left the mines and is now living in the city, in a building that reaches the sky, where he has accumulated wondrous fortunes from his wood carvings.

Rumor has it that it is because of Xoliswa Ximiya that he has never come back to Qolorha-by-Sea. People have not forgotten that the two were in love many years ago when they were both at primary school. But as time went on, Xoliswa Ximiya outgrew Twin as she became more educated.

He gave up on education in Standard Six. But he never gave up on Xoliswa Ximiya. For many years he hankered after her. That was why he left for Johannesburg, so the gossip goes, to mend his broken heart far away from her. Villagers, however, still hope to this day that the two will eventually marry and bring about peace between the two families.

“Dalton is a good man—although a person is only good when he is asleep . . . or dead,” says Zim, blowing out a cloud of smoke and ejecting a jet of spittle onto the floor. “He will not expel you on account of loose tongues. You were just doing your work and those girls came and provoked you. Listen, tomorrow I am getting my nkamnkam. I’ll buy you anything you want.”

“You do not need to bribe me, tata. I am working for myself now,” says Qukezwa proudly.

Indeed, the next day is nkamnkam day. The aged and their hangers-on stream to Vulindlela Trading Store in their finery.

Bhonco and NoPetticoat are among the first to arrive.

He wears his usual brown overalls, gumboots, and skullcap. Loose strands of beads known as
isidanga
hang around his neck. They are completely out of place since they should normally be worn when one is beautifully attired in isiXhosa costume. They make him look like a slob. Over his shoulder hangs a bag made of rock rabbit skin, in which he keeps his long pipe and tobacco. Today NoPetticoat’s nkamnkam check is also in this bag.

NoPetticoat is one of the
amahomba
—those who look beautiful and pride themselves in fashion. She is wearing her red-ochred
isikhakha
dress. Her neck is weighted with beadwork of many kinds. There are the square
amatikiti
beads and the multicolored
uphalaza
and
icangci
. Her face is white with calamine lotion, and on her head she
wears a big iqhiya turban which is broader than her shoulders. It is decorated with beads which match her
amacici
beaded earrings.

To the amahomba, clothes are an art form. They talk. They say something about the wearer. But to highly civilized people like Xoliswa Ximiya, isiXhosa costume is an embarrassment. She hates to see her mother looking so beautiful, because she thinks that it is high time her parents changed from
ubuqaba
—backwardness and heathenism. They must become
amagqobhoka
—enlightened ones—like her. She has bought her parents dresses and suits in the latest European styles. She might as well have bought them for the moths in the boxes under their bed.

When Zim arrives, heads turn. He is resplendent in his white
ingqawa
blanket which is tied around the waist and is so long that it reaches his ankles. Around his neck he wears various beads such as
idiliza
and isidanga. Around his head he wears
isiqweqwe
headbands made of very colorful beads. He is puffing away at his long pipe with pomp and ceremony.

The aged and their hangers-on are all puffing away, filling the store with clouds of pungent smoke. Women, especially, look graceful with their pipes, which are much longer than men’s.

“Tell them to stop smoking, John. We can’t even breathe in this smoke,” complains Missis in English.

“Those who want to smoke must go outside!” shouts Dalton in his perfect isiXhosa.

“And they must not spit on the floor,” moans Missis. “They spit everywhere, these people.”

“Don’t spit inside the shop. It’s not good manners. If you want to smoke and spit, go outside!”

“And lose our place in the queue? Not on your life,” says one stubborn graybeard.

“You will smoke when you have received your money then. We are not going to serve anyone who smokes in the shop.”

Nkamnkam day is a very busy day at Vulindlela Trading Store. The aged and their hangers-on—daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and sundry relatives—have their checks ready to be cashed by Dalton and Missis. The salespeople are busy behind the counters, for today grannies
are buying sweets, biscuits, and corned beef for their favorite grandchildren.

Qukezwa drags a big bathtub full of little black notebooks from behind the counter, and puts it on the floor. Each pensioner looks for his or her own book, and gives it to Dalton behind the counter.

Even though the pensioners are illiterate, they know their books very well. And so they should, for in the books their personal ityala is written. Throughout the month they have bought groceries on credit at the store, and Dalton and Missis have diligently recorded their debt in the little black notebooks.

Now Dalton adds up the debt, deducts it from the amount of the check, and gives the balance to the pensioner. For those who have been careless during the month there will be no money. The whole pension check will be swallowed up by their ityala. The next month the vicious cycle of debt will continue.

Bhonco and NoPetticoat are about to reach the bathtub when Zim begins to sing aloud,
“Hayi. . . hayi. . . bo . . .
Even those who don’t have a book in the bathtub are here . . .”

People laugh. They know that he is referring to Bhonco. Everyone knows that Bhonco receives no nkamnkam.

Bhonco, son of Ximiya, responds with his own song,
“Hayi
. . .
hayi. . . bo . . .
Those whose daughters are not secondary-school principals but sweep the floors of white people should stop talking nonsense . . .”

People laugh again. Qukezwa, who was helping an old lady find her book, glares at Bhonco. And so does Zim.

“Don’t you two start your senseless quarrels again. At least not in my store,” warns Dalton, who knows from experience that this may lead to a physical fight.

“Don’t look at me,” protests Bhonco. “That Believer started it. Doesn’t he know? It is because his ancestors forced the amaXhosa people to kill their cattle. That is why we are suffering like this. That is why I don’t even have nkamnkam.”

“Tell the Unbeliever that it is because his ancestors refused to slaughter the cattle even when prophetesses like Nongqawuse, Nonkosi,
and Nombanda instructed them to do so. That is why life is so difficult. That is why he has no nkamnkam.”

The war of the Believers and Unbelievers!

Afterwards, both Zim and his daughter feel a bit exercised by the tiff at the store. They are in Nongqawuse’s Valley. Qukezwa is riding Gxagxa, her father’s brown-and-white horse, while Zim walks next to it, holding its reins. They are moving slowly towards Nongqawuse’s Pool.

Today the clouds are low, and the mountaintops are wearing them like mourning hats.

“It was all your fault,” Qukezwa bursts out. “You embarrassed me, tata. You invited the eyes of the people on me.”

They are walking past
usundu
palms among the wild irises that grow in the valley. It is a cool afternoon, and the Namaqualand dove is cooing softly. In Nongqawuse’s Pool a variety of eels, springer fish, and river otters are engaged in various antics, showing off to the visitors.

“There used to be aloes around this pool. In the days of Nongqawuse there were aloes,” says Zim, talking in whistles.

“Don’t change the subject, tata. You heard what I said.”

“Even when we were growing up, there were aloes. Also reeds. Reeds used to cover this whole place. Only forty years ago . . . when I was a young man . . . there were reeds. In the days of Nongqawuse the whole ridge was covered with people who came to see the wonders.”

He talks passionately about this valley. When he began to walk, he walked in this valley. He looked after cattle in this valley. He was circumcised here. His grandfather’s fields were here. His whole life is centered in this valley. He is one with Intlambo-ka-Nongqawuse—Nongqawuse’s Valley.

It is clear to Qukezwa that Zim has no intention of discussing his spat with Bhonco. Perhaps she should tell him about her yearning for the city. Now she also talks in whistles. They both sound like birds of the forest.

“You want to go to Butterworth or Centani? You are free to go there anytime you want. No one has ever stopped you.”

“I am talking about Johannesburg, tata. I have Standard Eight but I sweep the floors. You heard what old man Bhonco said. Maybe if I go to the city I’ll be a clerk and earn better money than the small change that Dalton gives me. I’ll be somebody in the city.”

This astonishes Zim. Surely it must be the work of the Unbelievers again. His daughter has never been dissatisfied with her lot in the village before. She cannot leave, he tells her, for she is the only one left to carry forward the tradition of belief.

“Your brother left and never came back. He was deceived by the wealth of the city. The ancestors cannot be happy with that sort of thing. I swear in the name of Mlanjeni that they’ll beat him up with a thick stick.”

“Of Mlanjeni, tata? Even though his prophecies were false?”

“Who teaches you these things? Mlanjeni was a true prophet. All his sayings were true, but everything was spoiled by young men who could not leave women alone. Mlanjeni said so right from the beginning. His medicine and women did not mix. That is why he himself eschewed women all his life.”

Then he tells her about Prophetess Nongqawuse.

“Like the Nomyayi bird, she flew to the south,” he says. “Nomyayi flew to Gobe to prophesy things that would happen. Nongqawuse used to go with Nomyayi. They were one person.”

Zim assures his daughter that if she works hard enough she will end up being a prophetess like Nongqawuse.

At night Qukezwa dreams of Nongqawuse flying with a crow—the Nomyayi bird. She made sure that she slept with her legs stretched out. She will, therefore, be able to run away from her dreams if they become nightmares. One should be able to escape from the witches in one’s dreams, or even run away from the dream itself.

But tonight there is no need to run away. She flies with Nomyayi in the land of the prophets.

It was the land of the prophets. Then the gospel people came. Mhlakaza first belonged to the gospel people. But later he was in the company of prophets.

The twins knew all about the gospel people. They knew Mhlakaza, even when he was called Wilhelm Goliath. He carried this strange name because he was a gospel man. He lived in Grahamstown with the white people. Twin and Twin-Twin used to listen to him teach the gospel in the company of a white man called Nathaniel Merriman, the Anglican archdeacon of Grahamstown.

At first he was baptized in the Methodist Church, and married his wife, Sarah, from the clan of the amaMfengu, in that church. But soon enough he deserted his Methodist friends and threw in his lot with the Anglicans. The Methodists, he said, told their hearts in public. He preferred the private confessions of the Anglicans. Also, the Anglicans wore more beautiful robes.

Twin and Twin-Twin did not see any difference between the Methodists and the Anglicans. They were all white people who, according to the teachings of the great Prophet Nxele, had been cast into the sea for murdering Tayi, the son of Thixo. The waves had spewed them on the shores of kwaXhosa. And now they were giving their reluctant hosts sleepless nights.

When Mhlakaza was Wilhelm Goliath, he used to give the people a lot of pleasure. They watched him carry Merriman’s baggage, trudging behind the holy man across vast distances. The gospel men walked on foot between country towns and villages, preaching about a man called Christ. For eighteen months they walked all the way from Grahamstown to Graaff-Reinet, and then to Colesberg on the banks of the Orange River. Occasionally when Goliath lagged behind because of the heavy load, Merriman cautioned him against the sin of laziness. When they came to a stream, Goliath washed the holy man’s clothes, and while they were drying he preached to whoever was in sight.

The gospel men provided much entertainment everywhere they went. Whenever they came to the twins’ village there was great merriment, and people knew that they were going to laugh until their ribs were painful.

Wilhelm Goliath boasted that he was the first umXhosa ever to receive the Anglican Communion. He could recite the Creed, all Ten Commandments in their proper order, and the Lord’s Prayer. He spoke the language of the Dutch people too, as if he was one of them.

Sometimes he would break into a fit of preaching. “I urge you, my countrymen . . . change from your evil ways, for they are the ways of the devil. Do away with
ububomvu
or ubuqaba, your heathen practices, your superstitions. . . and become amaGqobhoka . . . civilized ones. . . those who have converted to the path that was laid for us by Christ. Throw away your red ochre blankets! Wear trousers! Throw away your red isikhakha skirts! Wear dresses! For our Lord Christ died for us on the cross, to save us from eternal damnation.”