Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

People laugh again. Qukezwa, who was helping an old lady find her book, glares at Bhonco. And so does Zim.

“Don’t you two start your senseless quarrels again. At least not in my store,” warns Dalton, who knows from experience that this may lead to a physical fight.

“Don’t look at me,” protests Bhonco. “That Believer started it. Doesn’t he know? It is because his ancestors forced the amaXhosa people to kill their cattle. That is why we are suffering like this. That is why I don’t even have nkamnkam.”

“Tell the Unbeliever that it is because his ancestors refused to slaughter the cattle even when prophetesses like Nongqawuse, Nonkosi, and Nombanda instructed them to do so. That is why life is so difficult. That is why he has no nkamnkam.”

The war of the Believers and Unbelievers!

Afterwards, both Zim and his daughter feel a bit exercised by the tiff at the store. They are in Nongqawuse’s Valley. Qukezwa is riding Gxagxa, her father’s brown-and-white horse, while Zim walks next to it, holding its reins. They are moving slowly towards Nongqawuse’s Pool.

Today the clouds are low, and the mountaintops are wearing them like mourning hats.

“It was all your fault,” Qukezwa bursts out. “You embarrassed me, tata. You invited the eyes of the people on me.”

They are walking past usundu palms among the wild irises that grow in the valley. It is a cool afternoon, and the Namaqualand dove is cooing softly. In Nongqawuse’s Pool a variety of eels, springer fish, and river otters are engaged in various antics, showing off to the visitors.

“There used to be aloes around this pool. In the days of Nongqawuse there were aloes,” says Zim, talking in whistles.

“Don’t change the subject, tata. You heard what I said.”

“Even when we were growing up, there were aloes. Also reeds. Reeds used to cover this whole place. Only forty years ago. . when I was a young man. . there were reeds. In the days of Nongqawuse the whole ridge was covered with people who came to see the wonders.”

He talks passionately about this valley. When he began to walk, he walked in this valley. He looked after cattle in this valley. He was circumcised here. His grandfather’s fields were here. His whole life is centered in this valley. He is one with Intlambo-ka-Nongqawuse — Nongqawuse’s Valley.

It is clear to Qukezwa that Zim has no intention of discussing his spat with Bhonco. Perhaps she should tell him about her yearning for the city. Now she also talks in whistles. They both sound like birds of the forest.

“You want to go to Butterworth or Centani? You are free to go there anytime you want. No one has ever stopped you.”

“I am talking about Johannesburg, tata. I have Standard Eight but I sweep the floors. You heard what old man Bhonco said. Maybe if I go to the city I’ll be a clerk and earn better money than the small change that Dalton gives me. I’ll be somebody in the city.”

This astonishes Zim. Surely it must be the work of the Unbelievers again. His daughter has never been dissatisfied with her lot in the village before. She cannot leave, he tells her, for she is the only one left to carry forward the tradition of belief.

“Your brother left and never came back. He was deceived by the wealth of the city. The ancestors cannot be happy with that sort of thing. I swear in the name of Mlanjeni that they’ll beat him up with a thick stick.”

“Of Mlanjeni, tata? Even though his prophecies were false?”

“Who teaches you these things? Mlanjeni was a true prophet. All his sayings were true, but everything was spoiled by young men who could not leave women alone. Mlanjeni said so right from the beginning. His medicine and women did not mix. That is why he himself eschewed women all his life.”

Then he tells her about Prophetess Nongqawuse.

“Like the Nomyayi bird, she flew to the south,” he says. “Nomyayi flew to Gobe to prophesy things that would happen. Nongqawuse used to go with Nomyayi. They were one person.”

Zim assures his daughter that if she works hard enough she will end up being a prophetess like Nongqawuse.

At night Qukezwa dreams of Nongqawuse flying with a crow — the Nomyayi bird. She made sure that she slept with her legs stretched out. She will, therefore, be able to run away from her dreams if they become nightmares. One should be able to escape from the witches in one’s dreams, or even run away from the dream itself.

But tonight there is no need to run away. She flies with Nomyayi in the land of the prophets.

It was the land of the prophets. Then the gospel people came. Mhlakaza first belonged to the gospel people. But later he was in the company of prophets.

The twins knew all about the gospel people. They knew Mhlakaza, even when he was called Wilhelm Goliath. He carried this strange name because he was a gospel man. He lived in Grahamstown with the white people. Twin and Twin-Twin used to listen to him teach the gospel in the company of a white man called Nathaniel Merriman, the Anglican archdeacon of Grahamstown.

At first he was baptized in the Methodist Church, and married his wife, Sarah, from the clan of the amaMfengu, in that church. But soon enough he deserted his Methodist friends and threw in his lot with the Anglicans. The Methodists, he said, told their hearts in public. He preferred the private confessions of the Anglicans. Also, the Anglicans wore more beautiful robes.

Twin and Twin-Twin did not see any difference between the Methodists and the Anglicans. They were all white people who, according to the teachings of the great Prophet Nxele, had been cast into the sea for murdering Tayi, the son of Thixo. The waves had spewed them on the shores of kwaXhosa. And now they were giving their reluctant hosts sleepless nights.

When Mhlakaza was Wilhelm Goliath, he used to give the people a lot of pleasure. They watched him carry Merriman’s baggage, trudging behind the holy man across vast distances. The gospel men walked on foot between country towns and villages, preaching about a man called Christ. For eighteen months they walked all the way from Grahamstown to Graaff-Reinet, and then to Colesberg on the banks of the Orange River. Occasionally when Goliath lagged behind because of the heavy load, Merriman cautioned him against the sin of laziness. When they came to a stream, Goliath washed the holy man’s clothes, and while they were drying he preached to whoever was in sight.

The gospel men provided much entertainment everywhere they went. Whenever they came to the twins’ village there was great merriment, and people knew that they were going to laugh until their ribs were painful.

Wilhelm Goliath boasted that he was the first umXhosa ever to receive the Anglican Communion. He could recite the Creed, all Ten Commandments in their proper order, and the Lord’s Prayer. He spoke the language of the Dutch people too, as if he was one of them.

Sometimes he would break into a fit of preaching. “I urge you, my countrymen. . change from your evil ways, for they are the ways of the devil. Do away with ububomvu or ubuqaba, your heathen practices, your superstitions. . and become amaGqobhoka. . civilized ones. . those who have converted to the path that was laid for us by Christ. Throw away your red ochre blankets! Wear trousers! Throw away your red isikhakha skirts! Wear dresses! For our Lord Christ died for us on the cross, to save us from eternal damnation.”

These were utterances that were guaranteed to cause a lot of mirth among his listeners. They found it funny that the way to the white man’s heaven was through trousers and dresses. In any case, this Goliath looked hilarious in his ill-fitting black suit that used to belong to Merriman.

The gospel men made sense only when they talked of the resurrection. When Merriman told the people that one day all humankind would rise from the dead, they were joyous. They said they would like to see their grandfathers and all their relatives who had left this world for that of the ancestors.