Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“You must have loved it,” says Camagu.

“It is the best country in the world. I hope to go back one day. You are lucky to be going there. I envy you. Are you going for a course — or a conference maybe?”

“No. I am going to work. I can’t find a job in South Africa.”

She is amazed by his temerity to think that he can just fly to a great country like America and find employment when he can’t even find it in South Africa.

“What makes you think you’ll find a job in America?”

“Well, I have worked there before. I have a good track record with the organization I worked for.”

There is a hint of anger in her eyes.

“You’ve been in America before?”

“I lived there for thirty years. Practically grew up there. I went there as a teenager.”

Now she is really angry. Her colleagues are enjoying this, although they are discreet in their glee, lest they be on the receiving end of her displeasure. Camagu is uncomfortable. He does not know how he can show her that he had no intention of embarrassing her in front of her colleagues. Her subordinates, in fact.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask me, miss!”

“I am not miss! My name is Xoliswa.”

“Ximiya,” adds Vathiswa.

She decides that she is now going to ignore Camagu and focus on her other guests, who are arguing aloud about the new developments in the village. Camagu can only catch snippets of the discussion. Apparently a big company that owns hotels throughout southern Africa wants to build a casino on the Gxarha River mouth. They want to introduce water sports in the great lagoon. Tourists will come from all over the world to gamble and to play with their boats and surfboards. At last Qolorha-by-Sea will see progress. But it seems some people in the village are against these developments.

Vathiswa either is out of her depth in this discussion or feels sorry for the stranger who has been left out. She moves closer to him and asks what he studied in America.

“A doctoral degree in communication and economic development,” he says, wondering if that will make any sense to her.

“I wish I were you. Maybe you should put me in your suitcase when you fly to America. I want to see all the wonderful things that Xoliswa Ximiya talks about.”

Camagu whispers in her ear, “Take everything with a pinch of salt. Her adulation of the place must not mislead you. There is nothing wonderful about America. Unless you think racial prejudice and bullyboy tactics towards other countries are wonderful.”

But she is no longer listening. She is giggling. She finds his whispering in her ear rather ticklish. And flirtatious. Perhaps greater things will come out of it.

She tells him about herself. She worked as a nurse in Queenstown. But unfortunately she had a fall.

“A fall?”

“I fell pregnant. At the time they did not allow unmarried nurses to have babies. I then went to model clothes for Mahomedy’s in Durban. I was featured in their catalogues.”

Now she works as a receptionist at the Blue Flamingo Hotel. Camagu remembers seeing her at the hotel and marveling at her outrageous outfit, which was the height of fashion ten years ago. He wonders why Xoliswa Ximiya does not give her a few tips. After all, what are friends for? Or could it be that the erstwhile catalogue model is all right as she is since she makes Xoliswa Ximiya’s flame shine even brighter?

It does not escape Camagu that although Xoliswa Ximiya is ostensibly ignoring him she is furtively listening to his conversation with Vathiswa. When she observes that things may be getting too cozy between them, she makes up her mind that a man who can just fly to America to work there is too important to ignore. He is more of her class than of Vathiswa’s, anyway. He is a kindred spirit, because both of them have lived in the land of the free and the brave.

She draws him into the debate about the developers.

“This is a lifetime opportunity for Qolorha to be like some of the holiday resorts in America. To have big stars like Eddie Murphy and Dolly Parton come here for holiday.”

“That would be nice,” says Camagu without much enthusiasm.

“They go to Cape Town, you know. Cape Town is now becoming a celebrity paradise. Qolorha can be one too if these conservative villagers stop standing in the way of progress. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know the issues. But I am sure you’re right.”

“Of course I am right. You have seen how backward this place is. We cannot stop civilization just because some sentimental old fools want to preserve birds and trees and an outmoded way of life.”

He learns that the leader of those who oppose progress is one Zim, a Believer to the core of his soul. What is sad is that he has now been joined by John Dalton, the white trader. Are whites not the bearers of civilization and progress? Then why is Dalton standing with the unenlightened villagers to oppose such an important development that will bring jobs, streetlights, and other forms of modernization to this village?

Vathiswa has something to say about that. Dalton is only white outside. Inside he is a raw umXhosa who still lives in darkness.

“That is why,” she adds, “every weekend he takes white tourists in his four-wheel-drive bakkie to show them Nongqawuse’s Pool. Why would civilized people want to honor a foolish girl who killed the amaXhosa nation?”

Xoliswa Ximiya freezes at the mere mention of Nongqawuse’s name. There is a very strong anti-Nongqawuse sentiment around the table.

“Those people — why can’t they let that part of our shame rest in peace?” she asks pleadingly.

Another teacher has a different view of Dalton’s motives.

“He is just like all the other selfish white people. Especially those who have built sea cottages along our coastline,” he says. “Do you think they care about this community? No. They are here for their own selfish reasons. They have nothing to do with this community. They just come here in summer to have fun in the sea, then leave for East London or other cities where they come from.”

“But that’s unfair,” says another man. “Dalton belongs in this community. He lives here permanently. So have his fathers before him. He was at the same circumcision school as my elder brother. He is the man who has organized the village water-supply project. He has nothing in common with the cottage owners.”

Camagu is curious about the cottage owners. The land in the rural villages is not for sale. It is given to the residents by the chief and his land-allocation committees. How do the cottage owners get the land to build here?

This is a sore point with some villagers, he is told. The white people — and some well-to-do blacks from the old Transkei bantustan — bribe Chief Xikixa with a bottle of brandy, and he gives them the land.

“At first it was a bottle of brandy,” the history teacher corrects his colleague. “But now the stakes have gone up. Competition for prime land by the sea has intensified. The white folks now bribe the chief with cellphones and satellite dishes. Haven’t you heard? The chief has even named one of his daughters NoCellphone. His wife is pregnant. If the baby is a boy he will be named Satellite. A girl will obviously be NoSatellite.”

It is illegal to build within a kilometer of the coast. But the cottage owners don’t observe that. Most cottages are right on the seashore.

The landscape has changed already. The Unbelievers say it is a good thing, though, because the cottage owners give employment to the local men who wash their cars and to local women who work as maids. None of the men get jobs as gardeners, though, since most cottage owners keep wild gardens planned by landscape artists from East London, and these need no maintenance.