Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

One day Napu had scored a lot of money from begging. As usual, he chained Vutha to the pole under the bridge and went drinking. He was gone for many days, and forgot all about the boy. During all this time he remained in a drunken stupor, and when fellow-drinkers asked where his son was, he said he had forgotten where he had left him. The shebeen queens laughed.

‘How can you forget where you have left your child?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t have time for children. His mother will take care of him.’

‘Which mother, now? Didn’t you tell us that your wife died in a flood, leaving you to take care of the boy alone?’

‘It’s not my business. His mother will take care of him.’

The shebeen queens laughed again. They knew that the boy didn’t have a mother. But they praised themselves for brewing beer that was so potent that it made Napu delirious about a wife who did not exist.

When Napu finally returned to the bridge, it was to a horrific sight. Vutha was dead, and scavenging dogs were fighting over his corpse. They had already eaten more than half of it. Napu bolted away screaming, ‘They have killed my son! They have killed my son!’

He ran for many miles, without even stopping to catch his breath. He did not know where he was going. He kept on repeating that they had killed his son, and he was going to chase them until he caught them. He was going to kill them and feed them to the dogs as they had done to his son. He had taken his son away, he howled, to get even with cruel Noria. But she and her wicked mother had now murdered the poor boy. People gave way hastily as he approached. He ran until he reached the big storage dam that was part of the sewerage works of the city. He dived into the dam, and drowned.

There is a long silence after Noria has told this dreadful tale. They sit lost in sad thoughts, but Noria’s eyes remain dry. Toloki remembers something from earlier days.

‘You know, Noria. I used to see a dirty beggar with a small child. It was when I had just started my business grilling meat in the city. I did not know they were your husband and your son.’

‘I cannot speak about my troubles any longer. Did you hear about Shadrack?’

‘No.’

‘He is in hospital.’

‘What is he doing there?’

‘I heard he was injured by the police. He is in a very serious condition. We must go and see him this afternoon.’

Shadrack lies on a hospital bed. There are all sorts of tubes and other contraptions jutting out of his body. He is also on a drip. Noria and Toloki stand beside the bed. He opens his eyes, and smiles wanly at them. They greet him, and tell him that they have come to see how he is doing. They have brought him some oranges and apples, since you do not go to a hospital to see a sick person without taking him or her something to eat. He thanks Noria for her kindness, but tells her that unfortunately he cannot eat any solid food. His body gets all its nourishment from the drip. He suggests, however, that they give the fruit to the old man in a neighbouring bed.

Toloki cannot help noticing that not once does Shadrack look at him. All the time he addresses himself to Noria. It is as if Toloki does not exist.

The ward is overcrowded. There are twenty beds packed into a small room, which is really meant to take only ten or so beds. Some patients are sleeping on thin mattresses under the beds. Most of those sleeping in the beds are strapped to contraptions like Shadrack’s. Those who are sleeping under the beds have their legs and arms in plaster casts. All these people are casualties of the war that is raging in the land. Those who are fortunate enough to have some movement left hobble around on crutches. They silently curse the war-lords, the police and the army, or even the various political organizations, depending on whom they view as responsible for their fate. The smell of infection and methylated spirits chokes them, and leaves much of their anger unarticulated.

‘What happened, Bhut’Shaddy?’

‘The boers got me, Noria. They almost killed me.’

Shadrack tells them that he was ranking in his taxi last night when he was assaulted by three white men who were driving a police van. They wore khaki uniform with insignia and carried the flag of a well-known right-wing supremacist organization. This confirmed what people always said, that the right-wing supremacists have strong links with the police. The government has always denied this.

Shadrack’s ordeal began when he received a message to pick up some passengers at the railway station, minutes before midnight. At the pick-up point, he parked his kombi next to the kerb, and waited. Soon after that, a police van pulled up next to him, blocking his way. The three men climbed out and rushed to his door. They jerked it open, showed him their flag, and aggressively asked if he knew what it was. He told them he was not interested. They then attacked him.

Shadrack speaks with great difficulty. He chokes with emotion.

‘Maybe you can tell us the whole story when you are better, Bhut’Shaddy. Maybe talking about it makes you worse right now.’

‘No, Noria. I want you to know what they did to me. They were like crazed people. They punched me. They dragged me out of my kombi and kicked me. I tried to scream, but they throttled me. Then they loaded me like a sack of potatoes into the police van.’

They lowered the van’s side-blinds, and drove away with him. After about half an hour, Shadrack could feel the van reversing. It stopped and the door was opened. His kidnappers dragged him out of the van, and he was ordered to enter a dilapidated room whose door was opened just in front of him. It was freezing in the room. It was filled with naked corpses lying on the cement floor. More corpses were stacked on big shelves against the walls.

The men told him that they were going to kill him, and started assaulting him again. He stumbled over the corpses, and fell among them. When he tried to rise, the corpse of an old man was thrown onto his chest. He fell down again. One of the men grabbed him by the shoulders and ordered him to make love to a corpse of a young woman.

‘I told them I’d rather die than do that with a dead person.’

‘What did they say they wanted from you, Bhut’Shaddy? Why were they doing all this to you?’

‘They didn’t ask for anything, Noria. They were doing it just because it was a fun thing to do.’

After further assaults he was ordered out of the mortuary, and driven back to his taxi. They just dumped him there, after thanking him profusely for the good time he had given them. ‘Let’s do it again sometime soon,’ they said, shaking his limp hand. Another taxi driver saw him lying in the road next to his old kombi. He took him to the central police station where he made a statement.

‘Only a few minutes ago, just before you arrived here, I was told that one policeman had been arrested in connection with the incident.’

‘That’s better, Bhut’Shaddy. At least they are doing something about it.’

‘Only because I have all the evidence, and full descriptions of the policemen involved. I was smart enough to contact my lawyers.’

Shadrack explains that last night, while he was writing the statement, the police officers denied that the vehicle he was describing was a police van. A Lieutenant-General even made some thinly-veiled threats, saying that if he proceeded with the matter, it would make a lot of important people angry. When important people were angry, he warned, there was no knowing what cannon they might unleash. The police could certainly not be responsible for what these angry people would do.