Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

‘I heard from Nefolovhodwe that it took many years.’

‘The same Nefolovhodwe who pretended that he did not know you and your family? How did he come to discuss Jwara’s death with you?’

Toloki tells her that after he became an established Professional Mourner, he remembered his debt to Nefolovhodwe. The woman who was referred to as his wife had given him food. He had vowed that he was going to pay for it once he had the money, as he was not a beggar. He had told both Nefolovhodwe and the woman that he was going to pay back every cent’s worth of food that he ate at their house.

Toloki stood at Nefolovhodwe’s gate and rang the bell, summoning the security men to open for him. A guard came and demanded to know what he wanted. He told him that he had come to pay Nefolovhodwe his money. The guard phoned the great man and told him that there was a strange man called Toloki who wanted to pay him his money. He was led into the house.

He was introduced to a petite girl who was referred to as the great man’s wife. This one looked young enough to be his granddaughter. Toloki wondered what had happened to the leupa lizard, who had had a heart of gold under her painted exterior.

Nefolovhodwe was sitting at his usual desk, playing with his fleas. The room was different though. The walls were made of marble, and there were small onyx tombstones all around the room. The doors of the room were in the shape of gates made from giant pearls. They were obviously imitation pearls, since no oyster of such size could ever exist.

‘Welcome to the Pearly Gates, young man. I thought I was never going to see you again. What do you want this time? A job again?’

Toloki was surprised that the great man remembered him, since on the previous occasion he had proved to have such a short memory. He told him that he did not want a job. He had come to pay for all the food he had eaten in his house. At first Nefolovhodwe felt insulted, but then decided that Toloki must be mad. Perhaps poverty had gone to his head and loosened a few screws.

‘Why are you dressed like that?’

‘I am a Mourner.’

‘Are you mourning for your father?’

‘Is he dead?’

‘You mean you don’t even know that your father is dead?’

Then Nefolovhodwe told him of Jwara’s long process of dying. Toloki told him that he was not mourning for Jwara, as he did not even know that he was dead. He was a Professional Mourner who mourned for the nation, and was paid in return. Nefolovhodwe laughed. Toloki walked to his desk and dumped some bank notes on it. He had already determined how much the food he had eaten in that house had cost. Then he walked out with all the dignity he could muster.

‘Hey, you come back here, you ugly boy! Don’t you see that you have scared my fleas?’

But Toloki did not turn back. He proudly walked straight ahead, until he had left the premises of the man for whom he had lost all respect.

In the afternoon, Noria and Toloki go to Madimbhaza’s house. She says she wants to introduce him to this woman because she is the most important person in her life.

She is an old woman, this Madimbhaza. She lives in a two-roomed shack which is bigger than the usual settlement shack. Many children are playing in the mud outside. Some of the children are on crutches, and some have their legs in callipers. Her home is known by everyone as ‘the dumping ground’, since women who have unwanted babies dump them in front of her door at night. She feeds and clothes the children out of her measly monthly pension.

Madimbhaza used to work as a domestic servant in the city. She stopped working three months ago when her legs gave in as a result of arthritis. While she was working, Noria and one or two other women from the settlement used to look after the children. They were not paid any salary for this, since Madimbhaza could not have afforded it. Now that she is at home most of the time, the women, Noria in particular, still come every day to help her with the children. They bathe them, and help them dress. Then they feed them, and take those who have reached school-going age to the school that is made out of shipping containers.

‘So this is your young man that I hear people talking about so much, Noria.’

‘He is not my young man, Madimbhaza. He is my homeboy.’

Toloki shakes her hand. In his mind he sees the little Noria in a gymdress squeaking, ‘He’s not my brother!’ Madimbhaza says she is very happy to meet him, as she has heard so much about him.

Toloki learns that for the past fifteen years Madimbhaza has been taking care of abandoned children. She has often tried to find their biological parents, but usually without success. She says that some mothers have returned to collect their children because of pressure from God, but others have just forgotten about their babies. Some of the children were abandoned because they were born physically handicapped. Others were crippled by polio or other diseases at a later age, and their parents, unable to cope, also abandoned them at the dumping ground. The twilight mum, as Madimbhaza is called in the settlement and the nearby townships, is very proud of all her children.

‘God has given me healthy and good children to mother. He knows that I am not young anymore, and that he must give me good children. They all help me around the house and even wash themselves before going to bed at night.’

The twilight mum says that in addition to good children, God has given her good neighbours. Noria is one of the very best.

‘That is why, young man, I don’t ever want to hear her complain about you. Anyone who hurts Noria hurts me.’

Toloki laughs and promises that Noria will never have cause to complain about him.

Some of the children are victims of the war that is raging in the land. Their parents died in massacres and in train slaughters. In a recent massacre in the settlement, which was carried out by some of the tribal chief’s followers from the hostels, assisted by Battalion 77 of the armed forces of the government, as many as fifty-two people died, including children. Some children were orphaned overnight. They are now here at the dumping ground.

‘All I want to do in life now is to give them a good start and teach them to be good human beings when they grow up. I will die a very happy person if this can be done. These children are all very special to me. I treat them as my very own and they regard me as their mother. Nothing can ever take them away from me.’

Toloki wonders how this brave and kind woman has survived all these years, with so many mouths to feed. Noria tells him that through all the years she made do with her own meagre earnings. Our elders say that an elephant does not find its own trunk heavy. It was only last month that Madimbhaza received assistance for the first time. A newspaper, City Press , wrote a story about her. As a result, some kind readers donated clothes and blankets for the children.

It dawns on Toloki for the first time that Noria is still very young at thirty-five. She is handicapped neither physically nor mentally. She is strong, and does not drink. She does not abuse drugs in any form whatsoever. Surely she could have taken a job as a domestic worker. Or as an office cleaner — a job she has some experience in, having done it in the small town back home. She could even sell, fat cakes and fruit on the streets. But she has chosen to spend her days working at the dumping ground.

It is Noria who knows how to live.

Women are singing, while they slice loaves of bread on a long makeshift table. Others cut cabbage. Their song is about the freedom that is surely coming tomorrow. They also sing about the enemy that will be defeated, and about the tribal chief who will die like a dog one day. Sometimes they sing about sad things that have happened to their people. Yet their jubilation belies the sadness of their message. It is like those political funerals where the Young Tigers dance to a call-and-response chant. Someone who does not understand the meaning in these chants might be amazed or even shocked at how these youths can be so happy at a funeral. Perhaps the jubilation is due to the fact that part of the message of the songs is that the people shall be victorious in the end.