Zakes Mda - Ways of Dying

‘Get out of here, you stupid, ugly boy! Can’t you see that I am busy?’

Toloki walked out, with tears streaming down his cheeks. How he hated that stuck-up bitch Noria!

If Jwara ruled his household with a rod of iron, he was like clay in the hands of Noria. He bought her sweets from the general dealer’s store, and chocolate. Once, when the three friends, Nefolovhodwe, Xesibe and Jwara, were sitting under the big tree in front of Xesibe’s house, playing the morabaraba game with small pebbles called cattle, and drinking beer brewed by That Mountain Woman (who always had a good hand in all matters pertaining to sorghum), Xesibe complained, ‘You know, Jwara, I think you spoil that child. You pamper her too much with good things, and she is now so big-headed that she won’t even listen to me, her own father.’ Poor Xesibe, he was not aware that at that very moment That Mountain Woman was sitting on the stoep, not far from the three friends, sifting wheat flour that she was going to knead for bread. She heard her husband’s complaint, and she shouted, ‘Hey, you Father of Noria! You should be happy for your daughter. You are a pathetic excuse for a father. Or did you want Jwara to buy sweets and chocolate for a thing like you?’ She had razor blades in her tongue, That Mountain Woman. Xesibe was ashamed, and his friends were embarrassed for him. Since that day he never complained again, and Noria continued to receive gifts from Jwara. But so not to offend his dear old friend of many years he told her, ‘Don’t show these to your father. You can show them to your mother, but never to your father.’

It was not only the razor blades that made people wary of That Mountain Woman. It was also because she was different from us, and her customs were strange, since she was from the faraway mountain villages where most of us had never been. We wondered why Xesibe had to go all the way to the mountains to look for a wife, when our village was famous for its beautiful women. That Mountain Woman had no respect for our ways, and talked with men anyhow she liked. When she had just arrived in the village as a new bride, she was held in great awe and admiration for it was said that, way back in the mountains where she came from, she once walked on the rainbow. Of course no one had proof of that. We only had her word for it. But what we knew for sure was that she was good at identifying different curative herbs, and grinding and mixing them, and in boiling them to make potent medicines for all sorts of ailments. Those days she did not practise professionally as a medicine woman though, but helped members of her new family or their friends when they fell ill.

We told many stories about her, especially when women gathered at the river to wash clothes. She did not seem to be bothered. That Mountain Woman had no shame. The story we told every day, with colourful variations depending on who was telling it, originally happened when she was pregnant with Noria. During the later stages of her pregnancy, she went back to her home village in the mountains. It was the custom that she should give birth to her first child among her own people, and be nursed back to health, and be advised about baby care, by her own mother, and by other female relatives in her village. She went to the government clinic every month to be examined by the nurses, and to get the free powdered milk, cooking oil, and oatmeal that were given to pregnant women. Every time the story was told we exclaimed cynically, ‘Oh, they have clinics too in the mountain villages!’

During that period a group of health assistants came to the village, and stayed at the clinic. They were young men who were being trained to educate villagers about primary health care. Sometimes they helped the nurses to bandage the wounds of young men who had participated in stick fights, or in brawls that involved beer and women. During the few weeks that they stayed there, the health assistants accumulated quite a reputation in the villages around the clinic, for they went out drinking every night and did naughty things with the young women whose husbands were migrant workers in the mines.

One day That Mountain Woman noticed that the cooking oil and powdered milk were about to run out. The whole family used this food carelessly because they knew that she got it free from the clinic. Even though it was not her day to attend the clinic, she decided she would go all the same. The nurses would shout at her, and tell her that she was meant to come only when her time was due at the end of the month, but she was going to pretend that she had come because she had felt some pains that morning. An added incentive was that she had heard from some of the pregnant women in her village that there was a new type of food being rationed out at the clinic. These were powdered eggs that the villagers referred to as the eggs of a tortoise. They tasted like real hen eggs when you mixed them with water and fried them in cooking oil.

She rode on her father’s horse, since the clinic was located in a valley over the hills, which was quite some distance from her own village. It is said that she was eight months pregnant at the time. At the clinic, she joined the queue of pregnant women who were gossiping about the handsome young health assistants who had invaded the valley with a blaze of town sophistication and class. The young women of the valley were gaga about the health assistants, and the men were so angry that they were heard on occasion threatening to castrate the young upstarts who had the morals of pigs. There was a tinge of envy in the voices of the women in the queue, since nature had deprived them, at least for the time being, of the pleasure of enjoying the attentions of the handsome visitors.

The turn of That Mountain Woman came, and she went into the room where she was to be examined by a nurse. At that moment, there was no nurse in the room. She stripped naked, and lay belly upwards on the bed as was the practice, waiting for the nurse to come and palpate her. Instead, one of the health assistants entered the room. She was surprised and ashamed, and tried to cover her nakedness with her hands. But the young man said, ‘Don’t be afraid of me. I am a doctor.’ Then he began to palpate her, and within minutes, the crotch of his pants was on fire. She felt herself relaxing with him, and they introduced themselves to each other.

‘You are a beautiful woman. I think I have fallen in love with you.’

‘But I am heavy with child!’

‘You won’t be like that forever.’

That Mountain Woman felt flattered that even in her most shapeless moments, a whole doctor found her attractive. He told her that even though she was pregnant, there would be no problems if they were to decide to seal their newfound love with a bit of adult merriment. ‘And I should know, because I am a doctor,’ he added.

‘There is no way we can meet. I come from the village over the hills.’

‘I have a plan. This evening pretend that you are ill. Ask your people to send for me. Tell them that I am the doctor who examined you today, and I am the only one who understands your illness. Then I’ll come.’

The health assistant ran away quickly when he heard the footsteps of the nurse in the corridor. ‘Don’t tell her I was here,’ he said. ‘Otherwise she will spoil our thing.’

That evening, That Mountain Woman was attacked by strange pangs in her abdominal area. She moaned and wailed and asked for the doctor who had attended her that day. Old women of the village who knew everything about childbirth and all the complications that sometimes occurred in women, came and offered to help. But she cursed them out of the house, and demanded to see no one but the doctor who examined her that day. A horseman was sent to the clinic over the hills, and found the health assistant waiting for just that message. He said, ‘Yes, I am the doctor you are looking for. Go back and tell my patient that I’ll get the clinic Land Rover and come immediately.’ The horseman rode back with the message, and the health assistant went to ask for a Land Rover from the nurse-clinician in charge of the clinic.