Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

The breakthrough finally came at the last funeral that Toloki and Noria attended. This was the funeral of the patriarch who was killed by his own sons for failing to observe the hair-shaving custom in its proper order. His spies saw the strange figure of a stocky man sitting on a mound, and producing atrocious goatly sounds. From the descriptions that Nefolovhodwe had given them, they knew immediately that this was the man they were looking for. They waited until the funeral was over, and followed Toloki and Noria, first to the funeral meal, and then to their shack. Nefolovhodwe gives a sly smile.

‘My spies told me they saw you holding hands with a woman. At the time, I did not know it was this Xesibe’s daughter who used to make people happy in the village. Are you two married, or are you copying your parents?’

‘Are you married to the young girls you live with? Anyway, what do you want from us?’

‘I am in such a good mood that I will ignore your impudence in calling my wife a young girl. And of course I am married to my wife. I married her in church before a minister. Unlike the old hag in the village for whom I only paid cattle and was deemed to have married by custom. I am a civilized man, my poor ragged children. I do things in a civilized manner. I am refined, and I am cultured.’

‘What do you want from us, sir?’

‘I brought you your father’s things, Toloki.’

‘What things?’

‘The figurines that he used to make in his workshop.’

‘I don’t want them. I refuse to accept them.’

Nefolovhodwe signals to the labourers sitting in the back of the truck, and they start unloading the boxes.

‘Hey, you can’t just dump those things here. What am I going to do with them?’

‘You have got to take them, Toloki. Your father wants you to have them.’

‘And how do you figure that out? You don’t even remember my father.’

Nefolovhodwe, however, reveals that for the past two weeks or so, Jwara has been visiting him in his dreams. At first he was happy, for he thought that this meant he was acquiring the skills and art of necromancy. From his communication with the dead, he expected to learn what the future held for him, and how much more wealth he was going to accumulate. He thought that Jwara would be well-placed to give him advice on such matters, since it was he who advised him to come to the city and make his fortune through the manufacture of coffins in the first place.

But Jwara had other ideas. He had not come to advance Nefolovhodwe’s necromantic ambitions. He said that his figurines were suffering. Nefolovhodwe was the only person who could help, by taking them to their rightful owner, namely, Toloki. After all, he had bequeathed them to his only son, and he could not rest in peace in his grave, or join the world of the ancestors, unless the figurines were given to Toloki.

At first, Nefolovhodwe ignored Jwara’s demands. He was a busy man, who had to look after his business interests which had expanded far beyond the mere manufacture of coffins. He had now branched out into the creation and marketing of marble and onyx tombstones, of plastic and silk wreaths, and of funeral haute couture for women, especially the widows of millionaires. How could he be expected to spare the time, to go looking for some stupid figurines in some faraway village he never wanted to have anything to do with ever again?

Jwara continued to haunt him. Nefolovhodwe thought that he would resist and win. How could he be defeated by a poor man like Jwara? With all the other people he dealt with in his day-to-day life, his word was final. He was idolised and almost worshipped by people who were in awe of his millions. He was even invited to dinners by white people who held the reins of government. How could he then be expected to obey a mere village blacksmith?

Then his fleas began to die. In his nightly visits, Jwara laughed and danced, and warned that more fleas would die if Nefolovhodwe did not do what he, Jwara, was ordering him to do. He stressed that this was no longer a request, but an order. They were going to duel to the end, until one of them gave up or gave in.

Toloki, hearing this, thinks it serves Nefolovhodwe right if his fleas have died. Whoever heard of a grown man rearing fleas, and playing with them? He had had lice back at the docklands, but they were not there because he was cultivating them. They had just been one of his misfortunes in life. He will admit, however, that he had found it quite entertaining to crush them with his thumbnails. Perhaps there is something in our deriving joy and entertainment from creatures that feed on our blood after all. Maybe he should not judge Nefolovhodwe too harshly on this score, since he had also found joy in his lice. But still the differences cannot be ignored. His joy was in the dying of his lice, whereas Nefolovhodwe’s is in the living of his fleas.

Nefolovhodwe had to give in when he lost some of the champion performers in his flea circus. He drove one of his more durable luxury cars to the village, and saw the ruins that were Toloki’s home. When he finally found Toloki’s mother, she said that she did not know what had happened to the figurines, and did not care. Those figurines had destroyed her family life, she said, so she had never been interested in knowing their fate. The last she remembered, they were in the workshop. The workshop was now just a pile of stones. Since all the blacksmith equipment was sold to other blacksmiths, no one ever bothered to go there.

Nefolovhodwe rounded up a few labourers, and proceeded to excavate the site of the workshop. To his surprise, among the rocks and debris, they dug up many figurines. Some were buried in the soil. And all of them were glittering as if they had been freshly polished. Yet no one had disturbed them for all those years.

Toloki is not in the least surprised to hear that the figurines had remained untouched for so many years, without people trying to help themselves to them. He remembers that many years ago, when Jwara was still strong, and Noria was a regular singer at their creative sessions, thieves once broke into the workshop. They stole everything they could carry, including his sets of bellows, but did not touch any of the figurines. At first, Jwara was happy that the figurines had not been stolen.

‘The spirits that made me create these wonderful works are too strong for thieves. No one can touch these figurines.’

But Toloki’s mother dampened his spirits by suggesting that the thieves had ignored the figurines because they were wise enough to see that they were useless.

‘What would any self-respecting thief do with the worthless iron monsters that you spend your precious time making, instead of making things that will support your family?’

Those critical comments started some sobering self-doubt in Jwara. What if the woman was right? Were the thieves making a critical statement about the value of his art when they stole everything else, but neglected his works which were conspicuously displayed on the shelves for everyone to see? He became very angry with the thieves for not stealing his figurines.

When Jwara invaded Nefolovhodwe’s dreams and ordered him to fetch the figurines from the village and deliver them to Toloki, he forgot to mention just how many there were. Nefolovhodwe had thought that they would fit into just one or two boxes. But after they had dug out everything, he found that they were so many that they would not fit in his car. He wondered how Jwara had managed to create all these works, and where he had got the iron and sometimes brass to make so many figurines. Or did they perhaps multiply on their own, giving birth to more metal monsters?

He decided to leave a few men to guard the site, and drove back to his hotel in town. There he phoned his office in the city, and asked them to send a truck, along with many strong labourers, and many boxes. The next day the truck arrived. The figurines were loaded, and Nefolovhodwe and his men drove back to the city.