Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“I do not know,” says the teacher.

“You do not know?” asks Xoliswa Ximiya with disgust. “A whole secondary school history teacher is ignorant of developmental issues! What did your parents send you to school for?”

“These are difficult issues, Miss Ximiya,” says the teacher apologetically. “Sometimes I find myself tilting more to the position of the Believers. I think it is important to conserve nature. . our forests. . our rivers. .”

“What about jobs? What about the tourists?”

“We can still get tourists. Different types of tourists. Those who want to commune with nature. Those who want to admire our plants, which they regard as exotic. Those who want to photograph our birds.”

“Those who want to see the natives in their primitive state, you mean,” says Xoliswa Ximiya disdainfully. “The only people who will get jobs from that kind of a tourist are the con artists, NoManage and NoVangeli.”

Camagu learns that NoManage and NoVangeli are two formidable women who earn their living from what John Dalton calls cultural tourism. Their work is to display amasiko —the customs and cultural practices of the amaXhosa — to the white people who are brought to their hut in Dalton’s four-wheel-drive bakkie, after he has taken them on various trails to Nongqawuse’s Valley, the great lagoon, the shipwrecks, rivers, and gorges, and the ancient middens and cairns. Often when these tourists come, NoManage pretends she is a traditional healer, what the tourists call a witch doctor, and performs magic rites of her own concoction. At this time NoVangeli and the tourists hide some items, and NoManage uses her supernatural powers to discover where they are hidden. Then the tourists watch the two women polish the floor with cow dung. After this the tourists try their hand at grinding mielies or sorghum on a grinding stone or crushing maize into samp with a granite or wooden pestle. All these shenanigans are performed by these women in their full isiXhosa traditional costume of the amahomba, which is cumbersome to work in. Such costume is meant to be worn only on special occasions when people want to look smart and beautiful, not when they are toiling and sweating. And the tourists pay good money for all this foolery!

Xoliswa Ximiya is not happy that her people are made to act like buffoons for these white tourists. She is miffed that the trails glorify primitive practices. Her people are like monkeys in a zoo, observed with amusement by white foreigners with John Dalton’s assistance. But, worst of all, she will never forgive Dalton for taking them to Nongqawuse’s Pool, where they drop coins for good luck. She hates Nongqawuse. The mere mention of her name makes her cringe in embarrassment. That episode of the story of her people is a shame and a disgrace.

“What is strange about people like Dalton,” muses Xoliswa Ximiya as if to herself, “is that his white forebears in the days of Nongqawuse were grouped with the amaGogotya — the Unbelievers — as people who would be swept into the sea on the day of the rising of the dead. But here is John Dalton today standing with the amaThamba — the Believers — in fighting against progress.”

Camagu excuses himself. He has a few letters to write in his hotel room. He gives her a peck on the cheek, and promises to see her tomorrow.

Wagging tongues follow him as he makes his way to the Blue Flamingo. Here is someone who has come to save Xoliswa Ximiya from spinsterhood, the people at beer parties gossip. But others think that he is suspect. Why is he not married at such an old age? The wiser ones say that he has not had the time to marry. He has been at school all these years. Haven’t they heard that his head is rotten with education? He is so learned that he has reached the highest possible class in the world. Vathiswa has even spread it that he is a doctor, although not the kind that cures illnesses. There are other kinds of doctors, she has assured them, who have earned that title by reaching the destination beyond which all knowledge ends.

It is clear that the community has been worried that their headmistress might die an old maid. It is well known that men are intimidated by educated women. And by “educated women” they mean those who have gone to high schools and universities to imbibe western education, rather than those who have received traditional isiXhosa education at home and during various rites of passage. Men are more at home with the kind of woman they can trample under their feet. Even educated men prefer uneducated women. Perhaps this stranger from Johannesburg is a different breed of educated man. He is not intimidated by the dispassionate beauty. Otherwise why would he have been seen with her every day for the last two weeks? People have eyes. They can see. They have ears. They can hear.

In the morning he lies in bed for a while, planning his future. It dawns on him that he really has no future to plan — not in this village. His money will not last forever at this hotel. His mission to find Noma-Russia has failed. Anyway, if he found her what would he do with her? It was a foolish quest. He must prepare to leave. He must work his way. back to Johannesburg. Back to the disrupted journey to the airport. Back to Xoliswa Ximiya’s U.S. of A. With this thought he sinks into utter depression.

A knock interrupts his thoughts. He opens the door for the house-maid. He goes to the bathroom to take a shower while the woman makes up his bed. All of a sudden she gives a chilling scream that brings him scuttling out of the bathroom.

“What the hell?” he demands.

Even before she can answer he sees a brown snake uncoiling itself slowly on his blankets. The woman darts out shouting for help. In no time a battalion of gardeners, handymen, and even a petrol-pump attendant rush in armed with spades and sundry weapons.

“Wait!” screams Camagu. “No one will touch that snake.”

“He says we must not kill the snake!” shouts the petrol-pump attendant.

“Why? Is he crazy like those Believers who want to protect lizards?” asks a gardener.

“No,” says Camagu. “This is not just any snake. This is Majola.”

It begins to register on the men.

“You are of the amaMpondomise clan then?”

“Yes. I am of the amaMpondomise. This snake is my totem.”

Camagu is beside himself with excitement. He has never been visited by Majola, the brown mole snake that is the totem of his clan. He has heard in stories how the snake visits every newborn child; how it sometimes pays a visit to chosen members of the clan to give them good fortune. He is the chosen one today.

The men understand. They are of the amaGcaleka clan and do not have snakes as totems. As far as they are concerned, snakes are enemies that must be killed. But they know about the amaMpondomise of the Majola clan. They know also that in their upbringing they were taught to respect other people’s customs so that their own customs could be respected as well. As they walk away, they talk of Camagu in great awe. They did not expect a man with such great education, a man who has lived in the lands of the white people for thirty years, to have such respect for the customs of his people. He is indeed a man worthy of their respect.

Camagu cannot contain his joy as he walks on the sandbank of the great lagoon singing to himself. He has left the snake lying on his bed. It will go on its way when it feels like it. He breaks into a jog, but stops when he runs out of breath. Age has indeed caught up with him. There was a time when he could run for hours. And that was not so long ago.

“Hello, stranger!”

He is startled. He looks around, but cannot see anyone. She whistles at him, and he sees her head bobbing in the water. It is that confounded girl again! The one who sullies crystal-clear water with poisonous juices, turning it into purple slime.