Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

But some disagree. A father is a father, they say. It is cruel not to let a father see his baby. A custom is a custom, says the opposing view. Men must learn not to urinate all over the place without taking responsibility for their actions by marrying the women they have urinated upon.

“But who says this son of Cesane is the one who has spoiled this daughter of Zim?” a voice of sanity pipes up above all the din. But Camagu cannot hear it. He is drifting away from Zim’s homestead. Wandering aimlessly at first. To be as far away as possible from the jabbering women. Away to the sea. Aimfully. To his haunts with Qukezwa. To the ship at Ngcizele where he last saw her. To the Jacaranda .

He sits on the railing where Qukezwa sat. The uxomoyi kingfisher sits on the mast and mocks him again. He laughs back at it. It did not expect this response. It flies away. He turns to the waves and conducts them as if they are a choir. They sing even louder and crash against the reefs with greater violence, creating snow-white surf. The children of Ngcizele shriek as they clamber down the rocks to the sea to swim and to draw the medicinal sea water that their parents use for drinking and douching. They wonder at the strange man who is playing on the skeleton of the ship. He beckons to them and they paddle away laughing. He creates his own Qukezwa, holds her very tightly, and dances around vigorously. The children watch in wonderment and laugh. They mimic him and dance around the ship.

In the meantime the Qukezwa of flesh and blood is sulking at the women who are fussing over her. She heard how Camagu came to see her and was not allowed to enter the rondavel. They could at least have called her out to talk to him, she moans. If she never sees him again, she and her baby will never forgive them. Heitsi bears witness to this by bawling for the entire world to hear. He bawls all the time. The women say it is because the sacred rituals of his father’s clan have not been performed for him, since his father is not known.

Heitsi bawled for the entire world to hear. Qukezwa sang a lullaby, hoping he would sleep. She was beginning to despair. Twin walked in front of her, humming a song about the coming salvation. He did not waver in his belief. Other Believers were disappointed in him, though. They were complaining that they had elected him by acclamation to be the leader of the secret forces that would destroy the houses, crops, and cattle of the Unbelievers. But he seemed to have lost all interest in the raids. He just wanted to sit on the hill with Qukezwa, and await salvation that would come from the Russian ships. Somehow his belief had made him lethargic.

The staunch Believers continued their raids without him. But they were collecting less and less booty. The Unbelievers had hidden their cattle in those chiefdoms that had strong unbelieving chiefs. Twin-Twin, for instance, hid all his herds in the Amathole Mountains where his numerous sons looked after them. They had established permanent cattle-posts with protected villages deep in the gorges that were hard to reach.

In the other villages, though, the raids continued unabated. Hordes of hungry Believers burnt down the Unbelievers’ homesteads after looting them. The Unbelievers appealed to Gawler and his master, The Man Who Named Ten Rivers, for protection. Although Gawler protected Twin-Twin personally, for the man was considered useful by the colonial government, the rest of the Unbelievers were without protection. All The Man Who Named Ten Rivers would say was that the Unbelievers should hold their ground. But he would not send his military force to defend them. He made it clear that the military would be sent only if the hordes strayed into white settlements and farms.

The raids were not on Twin’s mind as he led Qukezwa down the hill. Even the bawling Heitsi did not get on his nerves. He was thinking only of one thing: salvation.

“Father of Heitsi, the child is hungry,” said Qukezwa feebly.

But Twin did not respond. He marched on, humming his hymn. Qukezwa rushed past him and stood in front of him. She threw the child into his arms.

“What now, Qu?” he asked.

“He is your child too, Father of Heitsi! And he is hungry!”

“We’ll get something to eat at Mhlakaza’s. If you are tired of carrying the baby, I don’t mind helping you. In any case, Heitsi is old enough to walk on his own. You spoil him when you carry him on your back at this age.”

“He can’t walk, Father of Heitsi. He is hungry. And we won’t get anything at Mhlakaza’s. We didn’t get anything there last time. Mhlakaza himself was hungry. So were the prophetesses.”

As they approached Mhlakaza’s homestead they were welcomed by the wailing of women. The sound was subdued yet searing. Twin knew at once that there was a death in this house. He handed Heitsi back to Qukezwa and ran to Mhlakaza’s house. There were more women inside, kneeling around Mhlakaza’s skeletal corpse. Another casualty of starvation. Nombanda and her brother Nqula were there as well. They were not wailing. They just sat there and stared into nothingness. As usual they were unkempt. But Nongqawuse was nowhere to be seen. It was whispered that she had taken refuge with one of the believing chiefs.

“He was a great man!” declared Twin. He would have cried, but his eyes no longer had tears. He just knelt down next to the dried-out corpse and whimpered softly. He lamented the demise of the robust gospel man and the effervescent guardian of the prophetesses, who was now reduced to a bundle of bones.

“The dogs of the government are here!” screamed a woman outside.

It was Mjuza. He was accompanied by a group of fourteen men on horseback. They were all in police uniform. Mjuza was now a member of Major Gawler’s police force.

“We have come to arrest Mhlakaza and the girls,” announced Mjuza.

“You will have to go to the world of the ancestors to arrest him,” said Twin triumphantly.

“What? Is he dead?” asked a disappointed Mjuza.

“How else do you join the ancestors?” asked Twin.

“We are too late,” said Mjuza, addressing his men. “He has escaped justice. But we’ll take the girls with us.”

“That is sacrilege!” shouted Twin. “You cannot touch the prophetesses.”

“Try to stop us,” mocked Mjuza, getting down from his horse and walking into the rondavel. Two policemen followed him. The Believers watched helplessly as they walked out of the house dragging Nombanda and Nqula with them.

“Where is Nongqawuse?” barked Mjuza.

Nobody answered.

“I will find her, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“If it is Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse that you want, why are you arresting Nombanda? And what has her brother Nqula done?” demanded Twin.

“Nombanda was Mhlakaza’s prophetess as well,” said Mjuza. “She spoke as much as Nongqawuse, and was often preferred to her. And the boy Nqula, he was Mhlakaza’s messenger. He was the one who was often sent to the chiefs.”

Twin shouted after the policemen as they rode away with the boy and girl, “You will pay for this, Mjuza! The ancestors will punish you! Your own father, our great Prophet Nxele, will twist your neck for consorting with the conquerors of his people, they who have murdered the son of their own god!”

Mjuza only laughed at his empty words.

People remained asking themselves what had happened to Mjuza. He was the son of Nxele, the prophet who prophesied the resurrection of the dead in 1818! He who was known far and wide as a great anti-colonial militant! He who was a war hero, who burnt down a mission station in Butterworth in 1851 and was shot in the stomach by a colonial bullet! He who had announced at the beginning of the cattle-killing movement that his father was coming back at the head of the Russian army to liberate the amaXhosa people! Here he was today, a servant of his colonial masters, a hero of the Unbelievers! Indeed burning embers gave birth to ashes!