Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

Then Toloki takes Noria’s hand, and strolls with her through the grandeur. First they go to the bedroom, and she runs and throws herself on the comfortable king-size bed. Toloki hesitates, but she says, ‘C’mon, Toloki. Don’t be afraid. Come and sit next to me.’ He sits, and the soft bedding seems to swallow them. Toloki kicks his legs up, and jumps up and down on the bed, like an excited child. Noria kneels on the bed, and also jumps up and down. They laugh like two mischievous children, and fight with the continental pillows. They play this game until they are exhausted. Then Noria sits on a stool and admires herself in the big dressing-table mirror. She makes up her face. There is a built-in radio on the head-board, and Toloki fiddles with the switch in order to get a station that plays beautiful music.

They move from the bedroom to explore the kitchen. There is a beautiful peach-coloured ‘kitchen scheme’, with cupboards that are fully-stocked with the ingredients for making cakes of all types, and a big fridge full of cold drinks. Some cakes are baking in the oven of the electric stove.

‘You don’t think the cakes in the oven are ready, Toloki?’

‘They are not ready, Noria. Don’t worry, a timer will call us when they are. Let’s just relax and admire our beautiful home.’

They go to the lounge and stretch out on the black leather sofas. They play some more music on the stereo set, which is known as a ‘music centre’. When they grow tired of the music, they laugh at idiotic American situation comedies on their wide-screen television set.

‘You know, I am an outdoors type. Let’s take a walk in our garden, Noria.’

‘Yes, Toloki, let’s go and admire our beautiful garden. You have put so much work into making it the best garden in all the land.’

They walk out of their Mediterranean-style mansion through an arbour that is painted crisp white. This is the lovely entrance that graces their private garden. Four tall pillars hoist an overhead trellis laced with Belle of Portugal roses. A bed of delphiniums, snapdragons, cosmos, and hollyhocks rolls to the foot of the arbour. Noria and Toloki take a brief rest in the wooded gazebo, blanketed by foliage and featuring a swing. Noria likes to sit on the swing, and Toloki enjoys pushing it for her.

The whole garden is a potpourri of colour, designed by expert landscape architects. Petals and scents drift above the pathways that twist and wind up the slope. The paving is made from flagstones, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, and curving around a bright bank of salvia, azaleas, petunias and nicotiana. There are also varieties of grasses that create a natural palette of textures, rhythm, and soft colours. There are slashing brooks and waterfalls that cascade to a collecting pool. Pools and ponds are a haven for wildlife and water plants. Besides giving the place a rugged, semi-wild look, the variety of bushes and shrubs create hiding places for Noria and Toloki when they play hide-and-seek.

It is getting late, so they must return to the house. They choose a different path made from bark and tree-trunk sections that boldly blazes the way through the flower-clustered backyard, right up to a deck of lumber with ivy and honeysuckle climbing to the rafters. The deck has an above-ground pool, and a bar. Noria and Toloki relax on the casual furniture on the deck and view the splashy fountains and frothing falls of their wonderland. When night falls, the landscape comes to shimmering life with fireflies and moonbeams — courtesy of a combination of entrance, well, tier, globe and mushroom lights. The deck glistens with spotlights and floodlights.

Back inside the house, they proceed to the dining room. Toloki covers the large oak table with a lace tablecloth. He goes to the kitchen and gets the cakes from the oven. The oven automatically switched itself off when the cakes were ready, and while Toloki and Noria were frolicking in the garden. Using some of the silverware and china that is kept in the dining-room sideboard, Toloki serves Noria with a variety of cakes. For himself, he serves only Swiss roll and green onions. They eat quietly for some time.

‘It is a strange combination you are eating, is it not, Toloki?’

‘It is what I eat when I really want to spoil myself. It is not the kind of food that I can afford every day.’

‘But onions and cakes!’

‘It is because I am austere, like the monks from faraway mountain monasteries.’

‘Do they eat like that?’

‘I really don’t know what they eat, except for those who have faecal feeding habits — the aghori sadhu, for instance. But I had to invent a diet of my own that would mark me as an austere and ascetic votary of my own order of Professional Mourners.’

Noria does not understand what this means. But she lets it pass. She is enjoying the cakes, although in her view, which she keeps to herself, buying cakes is a waste of money. Toloki should have bought something more practical — like mealie-meal, sugar, tea, dripping, or paraffin.

After the meal, Noria clears the catalogue pages that Toloki had spread on the mud floor. They will come in handy again when she eats. Or when she sits on the floor, since her shack is devoid even of a single stool. Toloki stands up from the floor where they have both been sitting, and prepares to go. Out of the blue, Noria makes a suggestion that leaves his heart thumping at an alarmingly fast pace.

‘Perhaps my ears are deceiving me, Noria.’

‘I am quite serious about it, Toloki. We can live together here as homeboy and homegirl.’

‘It sounds like a wonderful idea. But I am afraid. What will people say?’

‘What will they say about what? We come from the same world, Toloki. Our story is the same. You are my homeboy. No one else has any business in our affair.’

‘I will think about it, Noria.’

‘Think seriously about it, Toloki. We must be together because we can teach each other how to live. I like you because you know how to live. I can teach you other ways of living. Today you taught me how to walk in the garden. I want to walk in that garden with you every day.’

‘Yes! The garden! There is much more to it than we explored today. Many corners that we have not seen yet. I love walking in the garden with you, Noria. We shall walk in the garden every day.’

‘So you’ll come and live here?’

‘I cannot live with anyone but myself. That’s why I decided to live alone in waiting rooms. That’s why I decided not to have anything to do with homeboys and homegirls. I am a monk, Noria. A man with a vocation. I mourn for the dead. I cannot stop mourning, Noria. Death continues every day. Death becomes me, it is a part of me. How will they know where to find me? How will my clients find me, Noria? I cannot live without death, Noria.’

‘I cannot stop you from mourning, Toloki. It is your calling in life. And your clients will find you. It will be like relocating your business. In fact, all the deaths you mourn happen here in the settlements and in the townships, not in the docklands where you live. You will be coming home to where death is.’

His head is spinning. Does she know what she is saying, this Noria? This beautiful Noria with the soles of her feet all cracked. This intoxicating Noria, surrounded by live and dead flowers. Suddenly it somehow doesn’t seem that important whether his clients find him or not. Is he doomed to be the first, and the last, Professional Mourner?

Toloki has nightmares that night. He is visited by strange creatures that look very much like the figurines that his father used to create. But these are made of glass. They make a terrible din, shouting his name and dancing around, all in step. Noria, also made of crystal clear and sparkling glass, appears among the creatures. She gives one sharp whistle, and the dancing and din stop abruptly. The creatures gather around her, and she feeds them glass hay. Molten glass drips from her fingers, and some of the creatures lap it. Toloki sees himself, made embarrassingly of flesh and blood, looking longingly at the scene. He wants to join Noria and her creatures. He walks towards them. But Noria rides on a glass horse that suddenly grows glass wings. It flies away with her. ‘Please, Noria!’ he screams, ‘Don’t leave me! Wait for me, Noria! Noria!’ He wakes up in a sweat.