Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

Napu laughed mockingly in her face, and left. Xesibe was secretly pleased that there was at last someone who could stand up to his caustic wife.

Noria gave birth to a healthy baby boy after a pregnancy of fifteen months, when we had long forgotten that she was pregnant, as after a while we took her protruding stomach to be the natural order of things. In any case, we saw very little of her during that time. She stayed home and did not venture out to meet any of us at the well where we drew our water, or on the river-banks where we did our washing, or in the fields where we collected wild spinach. That Mountain Woman was very happy when the baby was finally born, and she attributed the smooth labour to her powerful medicines. She was particularly pleased with the baby’s beautiful features. She claimed that he took after her own family. Despite the fact that her mother had forbidden Noria to ever contact Napu again, she sent a secret message to her husband, informing him of the birth of their son.

The next day Napu swaggered into Xesibe’s homestead. Xesibe was genuinely pleased to see him, but That Mountain Woman wanted to know what the crude upstart wanted in her house.

‘I have come to see my son.’

‘When did you give birth to a son?’

‘My wife gave birth to a son, and I have come to give him a name.’

An argument ensued. Napu had a nip of brandy in his pocket, and he kept on taking a sip from it in a very ostentatious manner. That Mountain Woman began raging in the language of the mountain people. Whenever she was extremely angry, she spoke in the language of the mountain people, and no one in the village could understand her. But it seemed that Napu was versed in this language, for he answered back. Maybe he was a mountain person too. They exchanged heated words for a long time, until That Mountain Woman got tired and broke out in our language again.

‘No grandson of mine shall be named after your people.’

‘He is my son, and I have decided to name him Vutha, after my own father whom I never knew!’

‘My grandson shall not be dogged by misfortune just because you want to give him a stupid name that means a burning fire! Don’t you know that the meanings of names are fulfilled?’

Napu insisted that his son would be called Vutha. From time to time he took a swig from his bottle, which we suspected gave him the courage to duel so bravely with That Mountain Woman. She meanwhile insisted that her grandson would be called Jealous Down, in order to spite those people who had laughed at her.

‘It’s an English name! My son will not have an English name!’

‘That’s what one would expect from an uncultured lizard like you. For your information, Jealous Down is a beautiful name. It means that the neighbours who were laughing at Noria’s misfortune are now jealous because she has the most beautiful baby boy in all the village. And don’t you dare imagine that you are responsible for that beauty. It comes from my side of the family!’

‘Jealous Down! It does not even come from the Bible. If at least it came from the Bible, I would accept it as his church name.’

‘Who told you that it does not come from the Bible? Have you read the whole Bible? Do you want to tell me that you know all the names that are in the Bible?’

The result was that Napu continued to call his son Vutha, That Mountain Woman continued to call her grandson Jealous Down, and Xesibe thought the best name would be Mistake, and proceeded to use that name at all times.

After six months, when the baby was bouncing with good health, Noria went back to live with Napu in their brickyard shack in town. Of course That Mountain Woman was against the move, but Noria was as headstrong as her mother.

‘If you must go, then you are leaving Jealous Down here.’

‘Oh no, I am taking Vutha with me, mother. He is my child.’

‘Yes, she must take Mistake with her, Mother of Noria.’

‘And who asked for your opinion, Father of Noria?’

For a while Noria lived happily with her husband. But then she discovered that he was having an affair with a neighbour. When Napu came back from work she confronted him, and they fought bitterly. She took Vutha and went back home. That Mountain Woman welcomed her back with open arms, but Xesibe said she must work things out with her husband, and must go back to build her family. He had a private heart-to-heart talk with his daughter while his wife was busy with her patients in her consulting room. He told her that he did not want a daughter who would be deemed a failure. Noria, however, said she would only go back if Napu came and apologised, and promised never to make her the object of disgrace and ridicule again. She also voiced other complaints against her husband, most of which she had been keeping to herself, in the hope that things would change for the better. The major one was that Napu was a koata, which meant that he was uncivilised and uncultured. As a result, she was finding it increasingly difficult to have anything to talk about with him.

This last complaint did not receive Xesibe’s sympathy. After all, he had been called a koata for years by his wife. She ridiculed the brown blanket that he wore at all times, and said that civilised and cultured men wore jackets like the clerks at the general dealer’s store. Or like the teachers at the primary school. ‘But you, Father of Noria, are a koata who sleeps with his boots on!’ At times, she went on to say that all his wealth was wasted on a vulgar man like him.

Napu came and begged Noria to go back home. As expected, That Mountain Woman ordered her daughter to ignore his pathetic pleas. But Xesibe’s secret advice prevailed, and Noria went back to their shack in town.

Like all marriages, Noria’s had its ups and downs. However, it was the down side that came to prevail. Besides the fact that Napu was a koata, and Noria had reached the stage where she never let him forget this, she became increasingly frustrated with their financial situation, which never seemed to improve. Vutha was three years old. In a year or two, they would have to send him to school. There was no doubt that even by then their situation would not have changed. Noria feared for the future. How on earth were they going to afford to send their son to school? There were fees to be paid, and one needed money to buy school uniform, without which the teachers expelled the pupils. Then one had to buy books, and make contributions to the building fund that the teachers always demanded from parents. How were they going to cope?

She could go to work. Over the years, the town had grown much bigger. Among the new places that had emerged were the hospital, the magistrate’s court, the offices of the agricultural extension workers, many other buildings (most of which were government offices), and a hotel which was always full of white people who came to admire our beautiful rivers and catch catfish there. Surely she could get a job in one of these places as a sweeper, or as a woman who made tea. But Napu would not hear of it.

‘My wife will not work, especially in those offices. That is where women meet men.’

‘It is my fault, Napu! It is my fault that I am married to a koata!’

One night, almost at midnight, a drunken Napu came home with another woman. He ordered Noria to pack her belongings and vacate the shack.

‘Where do you expect me to go at this time of the night, Napu?’

‘I don’t know. It is not my business where you go.’

So Noria took her few rags, and packed them in a pillow case. She woke Vutha up, dressed him, and they both left their home. Vutha was crying.

‘Where are we going, mama?’

‘I don’t know, my child. Ask your father.’

A neighbour gave them refuge until the next morning. Then they caught a bus back to the village. Although Noria did not have any money for the bus fare, she was well known to the bus drivers and conductors from the days when she used to spend most of her time making them happy. So they let her ride free of charge.