Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

We saw all the things that Noria was doing, and we made the mistake of telling That Mountain Woman. She was very angry with us, and called us children of puffadders. She said we were consumed by the worms of jealousy in our sinister hearts because Noria was beautiful, and had the power to give or withhold pleasure. She went on to say that our mothers were whores who had regretfully made bad jobs of aborting us. This last one did not surprise us in the least. After all, That Mountain Woman once called her own husband, right there in front of everybody, the product of a botched abortion. Obviously it was a favourite label that she gave to people she did not like.

We did not argue with her. At that time she had begun to practise full-time as a medicine woman, and it was a credit to our wisdom that we did not challenge the razor blades in her tongue. In any case, even before she converted one of her rondavels into a consulting room where people came to be cured of ailments caused by wizards and witches, while she was still using her medical skills only for the benefit of her family and friends, we were wary of exchanging words with her.

There was a young man we used to see sauntering, or perhaps loitering, near Xesibe’s homestead. He was very scrawny, and looked as if his mother had not fed him properly when he was a baby. He would walk up the pathway past Xesibe’s houses, and then back again, whistling to himself. He performed this strange ritual mostly on weekends, in the evenings when the herdboys had already confined the cattle in their kraals, and were sitting around the fire roasting maize, and telling lies to one another. Sometimes Toloki would be sitting with those herdboys, reliving the time when he was one of them before he went to school, and shaping cattle and horses with the red clay that the boys brought him from the river-banks. He was much older than these boys, but he preferred their company since they did not have terrible things to say about him. They did not judge his looks as harshly as their parents did. In fact, he was their hero, as his deft hands could shape clay cattle that looked like real cattle.

Xesibe suspected the scrawny man of being a thief, who was coming to survey his big herd of cattle, with the intention of stealing some of the animals in the future. But the herdboys told him not to worry, the man posed no threat to his animals. Perhaps they knew something that he did not know. However, the fact that Noria would suddenly come alive whenever she heard the whistle did not pass unnoticed. She would put on her shoes and trip out of the house.

‘Where are you going at this time of the night, Noria?’

‘I am going to sing for Toloki’s father, father.’

Xesibe had learnt never to complain about Noria’s activities with Jwara, lest he invited his wife’s scabrous tongue. That Mountain Woman, on the other hand, did not seem to notice what was happening, since she spent most of her time locked up in her consulting room, extracting evil spirits and demons from ailing patients, and administering love-potions to the lovesick and the lovelorn.

Noria did not go to sing for Jwara. Instead she went to join the scrawny young man, and together they would disappear behind the aloes. The herdboys enjoyed those moments, and would tiptoe to the aloes, and peep through the thick pointed leaves. They would then breathe heavily, and those who had already reached puberty would wet the pieces of cloth that covered their groins. They enjoyed these escapades, and whenever they saw the young man, they would become excited, for they knew that he embodied pleasures that were beyond imagination. Spying on his antics with Noria was certainly a much better experience than molesting goats in the veld. Toloki had once joined them in watching one such performance, but was so disgusted that he vomited. Since then, he was satisfied with only hearing the stories that the herdboys told about the pleasures behind the aloes, without seeing them for himself. Late in the night, when the fires had long since turned into ashes, Noria would slink back into her father’s house, with pieces of dry grass stuck to the back of her head.

That Mountain Woman finally noticed that there was a scrawny young man who was paying particular attention to Noria. But at the time she did not know of the adventures behind the aloes.

‘Who is he, Noria?’

‘His name is Napu.’

‘Where does he live? Whose child is he?’

‘I do not know his parents. He lives in town.’

‘What is his job?’

‘He is a labourer in a brickmaking yard.’

‘Did I bring you up to waste your life with mere labourers? Do you want to end up with a man who is as useless as your father?’

‘But father is one of the most successful farmers in the village, with many cattle too.’

‘He is still useless. And don’t you answer me back. Your labourer, what does he have?’

‘Nothing yet.’

‘I forbid you to see him, Noria. You will be married to a teacher, or a clerk of a general dealer’s store.’

A few months later we heard that Noria had run away with Napu. They were living together in a shack in the brickyard in town. That Mountain Woman was not amused. She felt that Noria had let her down. Xesibe rubbed salt into the wound, saying, ‘You see, Mother of Noria, it is all your fault. Now you are paying for spoiling this child.’ That Mountain Woman told him to go empty his bowels out there in the dongas, and that was the end of his I-told-you-so attitude.

We later learnt that Noria ran away because she was heavy with child. That Mountain Woman said she was very stupid to run away from home for such a trivial reason. Didn’t she know that her mother had all the herbs to destroy the stomach even in the fourth month? Was she not aware of the young wives of migrants, who made mistakes in the absence of their husbands, and who came to her for assistance? If she could help strangers correct their mistakes — for a sizeable fee, of course — she would have happily helped her own daughter. Xesibe was more concerned with the shame that his family would suffer. No one from the young man’s family came to negotiate lobola, and no cattle were paid to his kraal for the hand of his only daughter. Surely he was going to be a laughing stock. That Mountain Woman forbade anyone to go to town to see Noria. ‘She will come back,’ she said. ‘I’ll make her come back.’

But Noria did not come back. Although the town, which used to be two hours away by bus, was now only one hour away since the mini-bus taxis were introduced, we did not see Noria for a long time. We heard that after signing papers of marriage with her in front of a magistrate, Napu had taken her to his home village in the mountains, and had left her there with his grandmother. Napu did not have any parents, and was brought up by his grandmother. His intention was that Noria should stay there until the baby was born. His grandmother would help her nurse the baby. It did not worry them much that this was already against the custom that the first child should be born at the mother’s home. Their main concern was that Noria’s parents should not find her. And indeed it would have been impossible to find her in that mountain village, so far away from everywhere else.

Noria later told us of the things that happened to her in that mountain village. Napu’s grandmother was a vicious woman whom Noria suspected of being a witch. Her homestead was composed of only one hovel, and her only means of survival was through the monthly allowance that Napu sent her.

One day, an old man came to visit the grandmother and stayed until late. At night, the two old fogeys mixed some herbs, boiled them, and put the water in an old rusty bathtub. Next they ordered Noria to take off her clothes, and take a bath. But she refused. They were angry with her, and cursed her, saying that she was going to suffer before she could see her child. It was late at night, and the old man did not go away. Noria decided to spread her blankets on the floor, and sleep. When they thought she was fast asleep, the grandmother stripped naked, and danced over her, chanting in some strange language. The old man just sat on the bench, and mumbled unintelligibly as if he was in a trance. Just before dawn the old man finally left, and the grandmother got into Noria’s blankets and fell fast asleep.