Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

Everyone in Qolorha knows that if you want Zim you will find him under his wild fig tree. He spends most of the day dozing under it, listening to the song of the birds. Neither season nor weather deters him from indulging in this pleasure. He is there in autumn when the tree sheds its leaves, and he is faithful to it even when it remains naked during the winter. When the urge to commune with the tree is strong enough, not even the cold wind from the sea can drive him into the house.

There are four different kinds of ancestors: the ancestors of the sea, the ancestors of the forest, the ancestors of the veld, and the ancestors of the homestead. They are all regular visitors to this tree.

Today the spring weather is particularly beautiful. Green leaves are shyly beginning to appear on the tree. The green pigeons, with their red legs and red beaks, are flying around. Soon they will be feeding on the wild figs that will be ready even before summer. The amahobohobo weaverbirds are adding more nests to the city that is already dangling and would be weighing the tree down if it had not gathered so much strength over the generations.

Hundreds of birds inhabit this tree. Perhaps thousands. People think it is foolish of the Believer to be so close to so much meat without killing even a single bird for supper.

Zim is musing about NoEngland, and about the joys of belief. He is rudely awoken by a nest that falls on his head. Sometimes a foolish weaverbird chooses a very weak branch on which to build its nest. As the nest grows bigger it gets heavier. The branch breaks and the nest falls. Whenever that happens Zim becomes very distressed. The bird’s labor of many days has been wasted.

He takes the nest and examines the great craftsmanship. It was almost complete. Now the poor bird will have to start its construction from scratch.

He puts the nest on the ground and is about to doze off when Qukezwa arrives and angrily wakes him up. She is shouting, “You see the disgraceful things you do, tata? Now people shout at me at work! Do you want me to lose my job?”

“Why would I want you to lose your job? Dalton gave you that job because he knows you are my daughter,” says Zim. “And where do you get your manners. . talking to your father like that? What did I do?”

But Qukezwa walks into the house in a huff, leaving her father wondering what it is that is eating her. It must be something serious, otherwise she would not have disturbed her father in his musings. She knows how the Believer treasures his moments of meditation. After all, she grew up with the green pigeons and the bright yellow weaver-birds.

She must be angry. In her happy moments she talks with her father in whistles. The Believers talk among themselves in the language of the birds.

“She is only nineteen but she is as feisty as her mother used to be,” he mutters to himself.

He wipes his smooth-shaven head and face with a handkerchief. He slowly stands up and drags himself into the house.

It turns out that while Qukezwa was busy scrubbing the wooden floors of Vulindlela Trading Store, where she works as a cleaner, a group of girls came to buy beads, calamine lotion, and other items that young women use to beautify themselves. When they saw her they giggled and pointed fingers at her. She glared back at them, and dared them to say to her face whatever it was they were whispering about her. Even though most of them were older than her, ranging from early to mid-twenties, she was not afraid of them.

One girl stepped forward and shouted, “Your mother was a filthy woman! She must be rotting in hell for what she did to that poor girl!”

“Your friend got what she deserved,” responded Qukezwa, rolling the skirt of her dress into her panties, gearing for a fight. “Next time she will leave other people’s husbands alone!”

Missis saw what was happening, and shooed them away. The girls ran out of the store giggling.

“And you, Qukezwa,” said Missis, “if you bring fights in my store I’ll ask Mr. Dalton to fire you.”

Everybody knows that Missis has never really liked the bumptious girl.

The great to-do about the “poor girl” who, according to Qukezwa, has learned never to take other people’s husbands again, began three years ago when NoEngland bought an old Singer sewing machine from Missis and learned to sew school uniforms. She received an order from Qolorha-by-Sea Secondary School for a number of uniforms, and employed the girl as an assistant to put the dresses together and sew the buttons.

NoEngland and the girl worked together in one of Zim’s three hexagons, and became close friends. But the girl had a roving eye which landed on Zim. This interest was quite mutual, for it boosted Zim’s ego. Here he was, an undistinguished aging man, the object of desire of a twenty-two-year-old girl of exceptional beauty. His thirst knew no bounds, and he found himself drinking occasionally from the forbidden well, especially on those days when NoEngland went to Butterworth to buy more material.

But the girl became too greedy and selfish. She was not satisfied with the occasional tryst. She wanted Zim for herself alone. So she went to a famous igqirha —a diviner — who would give her medicine that would make Zim leave NoEngland and love only her.

“Bring any undergarment of the other woman,” said the diviner. “I’ll work it, and the man will love only you.”

The girl stole NoEngland’s petticoat and took it to the igqirha. As soon as he saw it he knew who it belonged to. Instead of “working it” he took it to NoEngland.

“Yes, it is my petticoat,” said an astounded NoEngland, “I have been looking for it all this time.”

She felt betrayed, and was angry that the girl to whom she had opened her heart was trying to steal her husband. But the diviner told her, “I can deal with this girl for you. Get me an undergarment of hers and I’ll work it.”

NoEngland contrived to steal a pair of the girl’s panties, and gave it to the igqirha. He “worked it” with his medicine.

Since that day the girl has never been able to have another tryst with anyone. Lovers have run away from her because whenever she tries to know a man — in the biblical sense, that is — she sees the moon. Things come in gushes, like water from a stream.

Even now, long after NoEngland’s death, the punishment on the hapless girl continues. She has seen a host of diviners, herbalists, and doctors of all sorts. They have tried and failed to help. The famous igqirha has told her, “This can only be reversed by the person who caused it in the first place.”

Hence the anger of her friends. It is the anger that many women of the community shared when they first heard of the scandal. Some blamed both women for trying to damage each other just because of a man. Ukukrexeza —having lovers outside marriage — is the way of the world, they said.

“What can we do about it?” they asked. “Ukukrexeza has been here since creation. We cannot change the way men and women behave today.”

Now everyone has forgotten about it all. Except the girl herself. And her friends who know the sufferings she is enduring, and want to take their anger out on Qukezwa.

Zim tries to talk sense into his daughter’s head. “Listen, my child,” he says, “you cannot keep on blaming me for things that happened more than two years ago.”

She loves her father. And normally they are such great friends. But the taunts of the village girls are becoming too much to bear.

“We are not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but your mother was not so innocent in this matter,” continues Zim. “How do you think the igqirha knew that was her petticoat?”

And what would prompt the igqirha to betray a paying customer? Qukezwa now begins to wonder.