Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“It is true,” says Vathiswa, asserting her independence. “Even on television I saw some cabinet ministers wearing isikhakha at the opening of parliament.”

“It does not matter if the president’s wife herself wore isikhakha,” says Xoliswa Ximiya dismissively. “It is part of our history of redness. It is a backward movement. All this nonsense about bringing back African traditions! We are civilized people. We have no time for beads and long pipes!”

The curse of redness!

It all started with the people of Johannesburg. When they heard that Camagu had not gone to America after all, but was hiding on the wild coast of the Eastern Cape, they sent messages that he should buy them traditional isiXhosa costumes. These were becoming very popular among the glitterati and sundry celebrities of the city of gold since the advent of the African Renaissance movement spearheaded by the president of the country.

Camagu saw this as an opportunity for his cooperative society to expand its activities to the production of traditional isiXhosa costumes and accessories such as beaded pipes and shoulder bags, to be marketed in Johannesburg. His partners, NoGiant and MamCirha, were keen on the idea. After all, harvesting the sea for imbhaza and imbhatyisa did not earn them that much. They even invited NoManage and No-Vangeli to join the cooperative, but these cohorts of Dalton’s were too busy milking gullible tourists with their displays and performances of isiXhosa culture.

When these activities reached the ears of Xoliswa Ximiya, she was not amused. Her lack of amusement has continued to this day, and is now showing itself at her host’s housewarming party.

Vathiswa looks quite rueful for contradicting her mentor. After her intervention, the other guests feel free to stand with Xoliswa Ximiya and become vocal about the matter. Those whose views fall in line with Camagu’s wisely keep quiet. John Dalton knows how to tread carefully at times like these. He keeps his opinion to himself.

“What can we say about a man who believes in a snake?” Xoliswa Ximiya sneers.

“It is precisely because I was visited by Majola that my fortunes have changed for the better. The house. . the business. .”

Camagu does not wait for Xoliswa Ximiya’s rejoinder. He excuses himself and goes outside to join the villagers who are sitting on the verandah eating meat and drinking beer. He would have liked them — especially elders like Bhonco — to sit at the table inside the house with the rest of high society. But they refused. They said the custom was that they enjoyed their feasts under the trees while the “teachers” sat in the house. The best compromise that Camagu could reach was that they should at least sit on the verandah.

“Hey, teacher,” cries NoPetticoat. “I hear now you are sewing skirts.”

“You can laugh as much as you like, Mam’uNoPetticoat, but you will swallow your laughter as soon as you see those women who have joined the cooperative society getting rich,” says Camagu.

“Those women, teacher,” teases Bhonco, son of Ximiya, “do their husbands who work in the mines of Johannesburg know that they are running around with you here?”

“Very soon those women will be earning more than their husbands in the mines,” Camagu boasts.

“In that case you can count me in,” says NoPetticoat. “I am tired of cleaning the bottoms of the children of white people at the Blue Flamingo.”

Everyone can see that beer has already run into NoPetticoat’s head. Not only is she unsteady, but she has become quite vociferous.

“You, NoPetticoat? What a laugh!” says Bhonco.

“You don’t think I can do it, Bhonco?” challenges NoPetticoat. “You don’t think I can work with beads?”

“What would Xoliswa say?” asks Bhonco.

Everyone agrees that Xoliswa Ximiya would not like that at all. Bhonco and NoPetticoat would not want to make Xoliswa Ximiya unhappy.

“Especially now that she has built you that lovely ixande house,” adds Camagu, making sure that the sting of his remark is felt. He has learned that here at Qolorha-by-Sea a man who does not hit back becomes the playing ground of other men. . and women.

People mumble that it is unbecoming for this Camagu, son of Cesane, to direct such snide remarks at his prospective father-in-law. Some ask how Bhonco can be his prospective father-in-law when the man has not even asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

“How do you know he has not asked?” asks a woman. “You do not know the things that happen in other people’s homesteads.”

“We would know. We would know,” says a man. “A daughter’s hand in marriage is never asked in secret. It becomes a public occasion.”

They all shut up when NoPetticoat glares at them disapprovingly. It is fortunate that Camagu does not hear what they are talking about from his position near the door.

“You see, son of Cesane,” says Bhonco in a hurt voice, “not all of us are rich like you. Not all of us can afford to buy sea cottages like this one that we are warming today.”

Camagu apologizes and says he did not mean to sting the elders with words. He did not buy this sea cottage because he is rich. When Dalton told him that it was for sale when the owner emigrated to Australia, he tried very hard to raise money to buy it. He went to banks from Butterworth to East London, but they all refused to give him a bond, for they said he was unemployed. He pleaded with John Dalton to stand surety for him, but he refused. “Such things spoil friendship,” he said.

It was only after he sold his car that he had the money to put down as a deposit, and only after he showed the bank the accounts of the cooperative society that they agreed to give him a mortgage. They decided that he was self-employed rather than unemployed.

“This son of Cesane,” says NoPetticoat, laughing mockingly, “they say he has learning that surpasses even that of our daughter. He has come after many years across the seas. But what is he doing loitering in the village? Of what use are his long letters? At least our daughter has done something for her parents. Is he able to do anything for his parents when he runs around catching imbhaza and imbhatyisa with women, and sewing skirts and beads?”

Camagu ignores the old woman. But others will not let the matter rest. Some praise his cottage in hope that he will take out more beer. Indeed, they say, here he will live like a white man. He even has taps of water inside the house, in the kitchen and the bathroom. His toilet is inside the house, unlike the pit latrines at their homesteads.

“Don’t even mention water,” says Bhonco. “He has all this water in every room while our communal water taps have been closed! Now our wives have to go to wells far away, or to the rivers.”

“We should be asking you why the taps are closed, son of Ximiya,” says another old man. “You are on the water committee, are you not?”

“Ask Dalton, not me,” says Bhonco defensively. “He and his Believers closed the water. Or ask this son of Cesane.”

“No. Not me,” says Camagu. “I am not on the water committee. No one ever elected me there.”

“No one ever elected you in any of these quarrels between the Believers and Unbelievers. Yet you have chosen a side,” says Bhonco.

“Hey, John, come out here,” Camagu calls into the house. “I am not going to be a martyr for your sins.”

John Dalton walks out. He seems relieved to be rescued from the harangue of the intellectuals in the house. But his face soon changes when he realizes that he is in for interrogation out here. The people want to know why the water taps have been closed.

“You know very well why they are closed, my mothers and fathers,” says Dalton. “For many months now you have not paid for the water. You know that those water pumps have to be maintained, and it takes money to maintain them. It takes money to buy diesel too.”