Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

The dockworkers, the sailors and their prostitutes think that he has finally snapped. They have never seen him in this effervescent mood before. The Toloki they have known over the years has always been an incarnation of gloom and dignity.

At the beach he goes straight to the change-room, takes his clothes off, and remains in green briefs that have holes on them. Then he goes to the open showers, and scrubs his body with a stone, while the cool water slides down his back. Soon a crowd gathers around him, and they foolishly snicker and chortle. He had forgotten that during the holiday season, especially between Christmas and New Year, the beaches are always infested with rich tourists from the inland provinces. Even though he came especially early in order to avoid spectators while performing his ablutions, you really can’t beat these inland spoilers. They seem to practically live on the beach.

A policeman, one of the idlers known as the beach patrol, comes and rudely tells him to clear off the beach.

‘Why? What wrong have I done?’

‘You are indecently dressed.’

‘What about all these other people?’

‘They are wearing bathing costumes, not underpants.’

‘Well, mine is a bathing costume too. Who decides what is a bathing costume and what is not? Where is it written that this is not a bathing costume?’

‘I don’t care. When I come back, I don’t want to find you here.’

He strolls away. Toloki takes his time to wash himself. He never worries about these pompous officials who like to impress the inland riff-raff by staging confrontations with him. When he finishes, he sprawls his pudgy body on the sand, and lets the morning sun dry it. Then he splashes his whole body with perfume. He is going to a funeral today. When he got home last night, there was a note on his trolley asking him to mourn at a mass funeral of five people who had died in an orgy of violence. The funeral service is due to start at about eleven. He decides to go and see Noria first, before proceeding to the cemetery.

Back in the city, he goes to furniture stores and gets as many catalogues as he can carry. He tells the salespeople that there are some customers from his village who would like to buy furniture. They would like to see the pictures first before they come to the stores to buy furniture. Of course, the salespeople don’t believe him. But they don’t see any harm in giving him the catalogues, which are free in any case. Then he goes to a newspaper stall, and negotiates with the owner to buy ten back issues of Home and Garden magazine. He buys them at only ten percent of the cover price.

He walks towards the taxi rank, and furtively picks some of the flowers that grow along the sidewalks. Then he proceeds to the pastry shop across from the taxi rank. There he buys a variety of cakes, including his favourite Swiss roll. He will buy green onions from the women who sell vegetables at a street corner just outside the pastry shop.

He gets into a taxi that will take him to the squatter camp — no, to the informal settlement. And no one turns their back on him, nor do they cover their noses. He is very pleased that he was able to get roses this time. Their scent fills the whole taxi. Noria will love these. Indeed flowers become her.

He learnt a lot about Noria yesterday. He had not really been aware of the trials she had experienced. All he knew was what had been said about her in the village — that she was just a stuck-up bitch who was spoilt. For him, she had acquired the looming stature of a wicked woman who had destroyed his father.

It is true that Noria was responsible for Jwara’s downfall, and his ultimate demise. As she grew older, she developed other interests, and on many occasions failed to honour her appointments with him. Sometimes she would tell her parents that she was going to sing for Jwara. Instead, Toloki now knows, she went to charm taxi boys. Jwara’s obsession could not be quenched, so he sunk deeper and deeper into depression. He could not create without Noria. Yet his dreams did not give him any respite. The strange creatures continued to visit him in his sleep, and to demand that they be recreated the next day in the form of figurines.

Often he sat in his workshop, waiting for Noria. Noria would not come. We believed that she had become too proud. Jwara sent her messages, promising her the world. The world, however, meant sweets and chocolates. Taxi boys had much more imaginative offerings.

Sometimes she went, and sang for Jwara. Then he happily created his figurines. He would come to life, be happy with the rest of his family, and treat them with love and respect. Even after Noria had gone home, and he had closed the workshop for the night, he would be lighthearted and make jokes with Toloki and with his mother. Since this was a very unnatural condition, Toloki would laugh nervously, and his mother would only scowl. Jwara would also buy delicacies such as canned corned beef and biscuits, and give these to his family. Toloki’s mother would sneer mockingly, ‘Ha! I can see that that stuck-up bitch Noria has given you pleasure today!’

When Noria did not come, however, Jwara became morose, and moody, and irritable. He would lose his temper for no reason at all, and slap Toloki or his mother. Toloki wished that Noria could come every day so that there would be peace and happiness in the home. He hated her when she did not come, as this inflicted pain on his family.

The last straw that broke Toloki’s back came about at Easter. At this time, the Methodist Church held all-night services that were popular with us all. Even those of us who were not Christians, or who belonged to other churches, went there because their services were so lively. Their hymns, their hand-clapping, their dances, filled us all with excitement, and the stone church building, that also served as the school, would overflow with enthusiastic worshippers. It was at these services that lovers met, and unmarried teenagers made babies.

Toloki joined some boys who were sitting behind the church, drinking the brandy that they had stolen from the house of the minister, while he was busy saving people from fire and brimstone in the church. Toloki had a few sips, and soon his head was spinning around. He was not used to drinking, and the ‘fire water’, as the boys called the brandy, sparked in him some unnatural elation. He staggered into the church, and vigorously joined in song and dance. When the hymns stopped, and members of the congregation went to the pulpit to testify how the wondrous work of the Lord had saved them from certain damnation, Toloki’s voice was heard above all other voices, shouting, ‘Amen! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!’

The hymn began again, and Toloki’s dance steps gravitated towards the pulpit. He reached the pulpit, and shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’ We stopped the hymn and responded, ‘Amen!’ Then he began to preach about Christ on the cross. He invented most of the details as he went along, since the little that he knew about the Bible came from the morning readings that were done at school. His was not a family of church-goers. We couldn’t care less that his story of crucifixion did not tally exactly with the version featured so prominently in the book of books. All that impressed us was that Jwara’s son, whose father had never cared for the church, had finally been seized by the spirit. How could we have known that the spirit that had seized him was brandy?

He shouted, ‘Ndinxaniwe! Ek is dors! Ke nyoriloe! So said the Lord Christ, hanging on the cross! I am thirsty! I am thirsty!’ Then he fell down in a drunken stupor.

When he opened his eyes, it was morning, and everybody had left. His head was pounding, and he remembered only vaguely the events of the previous night. He was ashamed of himself. He went home, and drank a lot of water, which seemed to make him feel much better. Then he slept.