Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

‘Why don’t you forget about the whole matter and go home to your wife and kids?’

‘I am not forgetting about the matter, sir. I have been beaten up and tortured for nothing. I am laying a charge against the police. I am contacting my lawyer right away. I am contacting human rights lawyers too.’

‘That’s the problem with these educated ones. They think they know everything. You are a stubborn man. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.’

Now the police have admitted that it was indeed their van. What makes him mad is that they claim that this is an isolated incident, which does not form part of any pattern. Yet many other taxi drivers have gone through similar tortures. The experience is known as ‘the hell-ride’ in the taxi business. Taxi drivers who have wanted to save their lives have made love to the corpses of beautiful women with bullet wounds. Although many have survived to tell the story, some have died from the beatings. Their bodies have then been stripped naked, and left among the other corpses in the mortuary. It was sheer luck that Shadrack was able to take the registration number of the van, and then contacted his lawyers immediately. Lots of taxi drivers just consider ‘the hell-ride’ an occupational hazard, and never do anything about it. But with Shadrack, these sadists picked the wrong victim. He says he is going to sue the government for a lot of money.

‘I tell you, I am going to be rich, Noria. They don’t know what’s coming to them. I am unleashing my own cannon. The hell-ride is going to make me rich. I am going to buy a brand new kombi, straight out of the box. I am going to build a big house — a real house made of bricks and roofed with tiles.’

Toloki is amazed at this man — who has ignored him since opening his eyes — surrounded by all the contraptions that speak of how close to the door of death he lies. Yet all he can think of is how rich he is going to be.

Noria tells Shadrack that they must now leave. She will come back to see him again very soon. Toloki and Noria are just about to walk out of the door of the ward when Shadrack calls Noria back. She goes back to his bed, while Toloki remains at the door, straining his ears to catch every word they say.

‘Noria, is there any hope?’

‘Oh, yes, Bhut’Shaddy. I am sure you’ll get well again. Soon you’ll be back in your business.’

‘I mean about us, Noria. Is there any hope?’

‘No, there is no hope. Absolutely no hope. I am very sorry about it, Bhut’Shaddy, but there is nothing I can do.’

‘What do you see in him, Noria?’

‘In who?’

‘In Toloki. He has nothing to offer you.’

‘He knows how to live, Bhut’Shaddy’

‘He stinks!’

‘Not today, he doesn’t. And he won’t stink again.’

Toloki and Noria walk down the street to the bus stop where they will catch a bus that will drop them at the main taxi rank in the city. There they will be able to catch a taxi back to the settlement. They do not know when or how it happened, but they find themselves actually holding hands. They both pull away in embarrassment.

‘I still don’t understand it, Noria. You lead a difficult life. To eat you must draw water for shebeen queens. Yet you turn down a man who can change your life forever.’

‘I have been chewed, Toloki. Chewed, and then spewed.’

Toloki has no idea what she means by this. But he decides not to question her further. Sometimes she talks in riddles. All that really matters is that she cares for him, as a homeboy of course. He cares for her as well, as a homegirl. Remember, he is of the stuff that venerable monks are made of.

Dusk has fallen over the settlement by the time they reach the shack. Noria opens the door, and they both enter. Noria’s shack is never locked. None of the shacks in the settlement are ever locked, since there is nothing worth stealing in them. Only rich people like Shadrack lead the lives of birds that fear for their nests, and have to be on the look-out all the time to check that no one breaks into their property to steal.

Noria lights a lamp that she has made out of a half-jack bottle. There is a hole in the bottle cap, through which a wick made of an old rag is passed. She has filled the bottle with paraffin, which she got from one of the neighbours she often helps with water. They spread some papers on the floor, and sit down. It is strange for Toloki to be in a house. For many years, he has spent all his evenings in waiting rooms.

He has not slept in a house since his shack was destroyed by the vigilantes many years ago. He had just started working as a Professional Mourner at the time. Funerals were held only on Saturday or Sunday mornings those days, because death was not as prevalent then as it is at present. Today, as you know, there are funerals every day, because if the bereaved were to wait until the weekend to bury their dead, then mortuaries would overflow, and cemeteries would be overcrowded with those attending funerals. As a matter of fact, even with funerals taking place daily, the mortuaries are bursting at the seams, and the cemeteries are always jam-packed. Often there are up to ten funeral services taking place at the same time, and hymns flow into one another in unplanned but pleasant segues.

In those days, Toloki used to sit in the sun during the week, and wait for the bulldozers. Often they came during the day while people were at work. When he saw them coming, he would rush into the shack and take all his furniture out. This consisted of a single bed, two chairs, a small table on which he put his primus stove, and a bathtub. Children who remained in the other shacks would also try to save their family valuables.

Bulldozers would move in and flatten the shacks, and then triumphantly drive away. Residents would immediately rebuild, and in no time the shanty town would hum with life again. Like worker bees, the dwellers would go about their business of living.

When bulldozers failed to get rid of the shanty towns, the government devised new strategies. They recruited some of the unemployed residents, and formed them into vigilante groups. The function of these groups was to protect the people. Their method was simple, but very effective. They demanded protection money from the residents. This was collected on a weekly basis and paid to the leader of the vigilantes, who had given himself the title of Mayor. Some residents refused to pay, since they did not see why they needed to be protected by a group of layabouts who spent their days in shebeens. The shacks of those who refused to pay would mysteriously catch fire in the middle of the night. Babies sometimes died in these fires. The next day, the survivors, with the help of their neighbours, would carry out the task of rebuilding, and would make sure that they paid the protection fee in future.

Toloki was adamant that he was not going to pay any protection fee. People who were not keen to see him die advised him to stop playing the hero and pay his protection fee like all other decent citizens. One day he was summoned before the Mayor.

‘I hear you are not prepared to pay the protection fee.’

‘Because I don’t see why I should pay it.’

‘Do you think the residents who pay it are foolish? Have you ever heard of any family which diligently pays its protection fee having their house catch fire?’

Toloki laughed, and told the Mayor that he must not forget that they used to drink together when he still had his boerewors business in town.

‘That is why I called you here, because I know you personally, and I don’t want to see you hurt. Normally we never bother to warn people who refuse to pay. We just ignore them, and when their shacks catch fire they start running to us for protection. But in your case, I said, I know Toloki. Even though he is now doing strange things at funerals, call him here so that I can advise him like a brother that he should pay his protection fee.’