Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“Hey, what is the matter?” Bhonco asks.

“We demand the return of our dance!” says the leader.

“Woe unto the amaGcaleka who have given birth to me!” cries Bhonco.

He tries very hard to wake up the other elders. Slowly they return. Their bodies are drenched with the sadness of the past. They are emerging from the trance ready to face the world and to battle with the Believers. They are taken aback when they hear that the abaThwa are demanding the return of their dance. This is a setback that none of them is prepared for. How will they survive without the dance?

They ask the abaThwa to sit under another tree while they confer.

“Didn’t these people give us this dance? How can they demand it back?” asks one elder.

“It is now our dance,” asserts another. “They gave it to us.”

“But now they want it back,” says Bhonco. “I do not think there is anything else that we can do.”

“We shall not give them the dance. What can they do?”

“Yes, what can they do? Will they beat us up?”

The elders would be laughing at this ridiculous notion if the elders were other people. Who can imagine little men like the abaThwa beating up giants like Bhonco? But Unbelievers are not prone to laughter. Or if they laugh at all, it must be in secret. No one must ever know about it. That is why the elders once reprimanded Bhonco when they thought he was becoming too loose with his expression of joy.

“Of course they will not beat us up,” says Bhonco. “But we do not want to upset people who have such a powerful dance. . a dance that can send one to the world of the ancestors and back again. We do not know what other powerful medicine they have that they can use against us should we anger them. We must tread lightly when we deal with these people. If they say they want their dance back, we must give it to them.”

“But how are we going to survive without the dance? How are we going to induce sadness in our lives without visiting the sad times of our forefathers?”

“And how do we visit the sad times of our forefathers without the dance?”

“We must negotiate. We must beg them to lend us the dance again,” says Bhonco.

“These selfish abaTbwa!” shouts another elder. “I shall not be surprised if they have been put up to this by the Believers. That Zim! He is related to these people, is he not? He must have put them up to this!”

“It is possible that the Believers have had some influence on the abaThwa,” says Bhonco. “But Zim is not related to the abaThwa. He is related to the Khoikhoi. They are different people, although if you don’t know their language you may think it sounds the same. They look different too.”

“You cannot teach us about the abaThwa and the Khoikhoi,” says the first elder dismissively. “We have lived with them since the days of our forefathers, although we did not call the Khoikhoi by that name. We called them amaLawu or amaQheya.”

Bhonco sighs appreciatively at the elder’s use of these derogatory isiXhosa names for the Khoikhoi and people of mixed race. It is the next best thing to laughter.

After a long debate, during which the abaThwa become impatient under their tree, the elders of the Unbelievers agree that the abaThwa must be given their dance back.

“We must be nice to them so that we can borrow it again when we need it,” says an elder.

“We are like a sparrow that is wearing the feathers of an eagle,” says Bhonco. “We must invent our own dance. At first it will not have the power of the dance of the abaThwa. But it will gain strength the more we perform it. Perhaps one day it will take us to the world of the ancestors just as efficiently as the dance of the abaThwa.”

Bhonco is fuming as he makes his way to the concert. Today he will have a showdown of all showdowns with that Believer, Zim. If he wants to fight dirty by sending the abaThwa to take back one of the valued rituals of the Unbelievers, he too, the son of Ximiya, has a few tricks up the sleeves of his wrinkled suit.

After paying his admission fee, Bhonco saunters into the school hall. The hall is full, but a young member of the audience stands up and gives Bhonco his seat. The elder throws his eyes around the hall. They fall on Zim, who is sitting in a self-satisfied manner next to Camagu. The eyes of the elders meet. Bhonco sneers. Zim smiles. Camagu is engrossed in the sounds of the school choir.

Across the aisle John Dalton sits next to Xoliswa Ximiya. He is not with Camagu because things have been a bit icy between them since Camagu’s indiscretion of criticizing his efforts to develop his village. Things are a bit icy between Camagu and Xoliswa Ximiya too. Not only because of their divergent views on civilization and barbarism. The little matter of Qukezwa finally reached Xoliswa Ximiya’s ears, and she did not hesitate to confront Camagu about it.

It was during one of his visits to her home. Even before he could take a seat, she asked, “Is it true what I hear about you and that child?”

“Child? What child?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I am talking about Qukezwa.”

“That child, as you call her, is not dismissive of beautiful things. Where you see darkness, witchcraft, heathens, and barbarians, she sees song and dance and laughter and beauty.”

“So it is true! You are a dirty old man! I have lost all respect for you!”

“What is true? And why am I a dirty old man all of a sudden?”

“You made her pregnant. Everyone in the village says so.”

“That’s the problem with you. You listen to village gossip. No one made that woman pregnant.”

“Woman? She is no woman. She was my student here only yesterday. And of course she made herself pregnant, did she?”

“The grandmothers confirmed after a thorough examination that she is still a virgin. I never had anything to do with her.”

“You believe in that mumbo jumbo? You are a disgrace to all educated people!”

People talked of Xoliswa Ximiya’s fury spreading like a veld fire. It was affecting everybody: her colleagues, her parents, and her students. She was right to be angry, too, they said. This Camagu was proving to be a scoundrel. He must be the one who messed up Zim’s daughter, even though the grandmothers have certified her a virgin. Otherwise how did the seed get into her? Who planted it? In what manner?

People’s thirst for knowledge must be quenched.

The history teacher is the chairman of the concert. He rings the bell and the choir stops singing. He stands up, obviously enjoying the power that he wields.

“Silence please, the chair is speaking!” he shouts. “Here we have Miss Vathiswa from the Blue Flamingo Hotel. She is buying with her twenty cents that the school choir must take a rest for the duration of three songs, and must be replaced by the choir from the Blue Flamingo Hotel!”

People applaud as the school choir walks from the stage. The Blue Flamingo choir takes the stage, and NoPetticoat’s voice rings in a new izitibiri song. Vathiswa herself joins the choir and dances around clownishly. But even before they have gone halfway through the song the bell rings again. The choir stops.

“For twenty-five cents this young man here. . he is a student at Qolorha-by-Sea Secondary School. . he says that he will not allow anyone to treat his school choir like that,” says the chairman. “The Blue Flamingo choir should go home to sleep, and the school choir should come back to the stage.”

The school choir has sung only one song before Vathiswa buys it off the stage again. The buying battle between Vathiswa and a group of students, now also joined by some parents, continues until the price is five rand. Vathiswa throws in the towel, and the choir from the secondary school dominates the stage. It sings three songs in a row, which reverberate around the walls of the hall, overwhelming everyone with joy. The very joy that is reflected on the faces of the students as they sing and dance.