Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“You talk in riddles, old man,” says Dalton. “What are you trying to tell us?”

But before the elder can respond, some of his relatives arrive. And soon thereafter a boy comes driving the three head of cattle with which Camagu will be asking for Qukezwa’s hand in marriage. Women welcome the cattle with ululation.

“Now that the cattle have arrived, we can proceed,” says an uncle.

“But the brandy. . where is the brandy?” asks another relative.

Dalton rushes to his four-wheel-drive bakkie parked near the gate and comes back with a case of brandy.

“We know the customs, my elders,” he says. “This occasion cannot be complete without the brandy that has been brought by the suitor.”

“Let the girl be called,” says the uncle.

Qukezwa stands in front of Zim, his relatives, and the suitor’s delegation that comprises only the suitor himself and John Dalton. Camagu has not seen her since she gave birth to Heitsi. She does not look at him. She is looking to the ground. She is expected to be shy on an occasion like this. Camagu laughs inside. Qukezwa looks so strange when she is shy.

“Do you know these people?” asks the uncle.

She casts a furtive glance at Camagu. He is dying inside. And praying that she will give the correct answer. He has not asked her before. He prays that she does not think that he takes her for granted. There was no way he could meet her to ask her to marry him. And there was no way he could wait for such an opportunity to present itself. He wants her to be with him. As soon as now!

Camagu sighs with relief when Qukezwa says, “Yes, I know them.” If she had said she did not know them, that would have been the end of the story. It would have meant she was turning Camagu down.

“From where do you know them?” inquires an aunt.

“Here in the village of Qolorha,” responds Qukezwa.

“To prove that you really know them, what is their clan name?” asks the uncle.

“They are from the amaMpondomise people. They are of the Majola clan. They are the people whose totem is the snake,” says Qukezwa with confidence.

Camagu smiles to himself.

“You have heard her. She agrees,” says the uncle with satisfaction.

“We have heard her,” responds Dalton.

“You can go, my child,” commands the uncle.

She gives Camagu a naughty wink before she turns away and walks to her rondavel that still has a reed jutting out.

“My work is finished now,” says Dalton.

“No, it is not finished,” says the aunt. “We have not talked about the lobola.”

“Twelve head of cattle,” says Zim.

“Tat’uZim! That’s rather steep,” pleads Dalton. “Unless of course each head of cattle is worth three hundred rand.”

“Twelve cattle, and that is not negotiable,” insists Zim. “Qukezwa is a child of the spirits. Each head of cattle is worth a thousand rand.”

“Let’s take it before they change their minds,” Camagu whispers to Dalton.

“They can’t change their minds. It is the custom to negotiate. . to try to bring them down,” Dalton whispers back. Then to the relatives he says, “We have decided to agree with your terms.”

“It is agreed,” they say in unison.

“After three days the girl’s uncle and some other relative will take her to our new son-in-law’s house,” says Zim. “According to custom we should be taking her to Camagu’s parents’ home, not to his house. But this is not a regular marriage. We are giving our daughter to a man whose parents and whose home we don’t even know.”

“Indeed it is an irregular marriage,” agrees the uncle. “When we take this girl to your house, son of Cesane, you know that a goat known as tsiki must be slaughtered. Then our daughter has to be given a new name by the eldest daughter of her new family. But in your case, who is going to give our daughter a name?”

“Yes,” adds an aunt, “and who will give the bride the leg of a goat?”

“We’ll improvise,” says Camagu. “MamCirha and NoGiant will do all the things that are supposed to be done by my female relatives. They are like my relatives now.”

“Look after our daughter well,” warns Zim.

The women bring food from the house. There is plenty of mutton, samp, potatoes, and spinach. The meat is served in a big dish and the men use their own knives to cut it. The other food is served on individual enamel plates. There is no sorghum beer, though. Instead they serve the brandy brought by Dalton.

“I had hoped our daughter-in-law would cook us her usual specialty of abalone, mussels, and oysters fried with onion and served with samp,” says Dalton as he munches away.

“This child of Dalton!” exclaims the uncle. “Where do you come from? Don’t you know that our custom demands that on occasions like this, proper meat should be served and not your snakes from the sea?”

They all laugh and say that young people like to change tradition. They roar even more when one of them makes the observation that both their new son-in-law and Dalton are not so young, but are middle-aged, and should in fact be preserving customs instead of trying to change them.

“Don’t allow our daughter to cut any more trees,” an aunt advises Camagu, “otherwise you will run around in court all your life.”

“By the way, what happened to her case?” asks the uncle.

“It just fizzled out. No one talks of it anymore,” says Zim proudly. “That Unbeliever Bhonco tried very hard to resuscitate it. But the elders of the village have more important things to deal with.”

The talk turns to that evil Bhonco and his Cult of the Unbelievers. The gathering mocks the folly of unbelief. They ridicule their rituals and praise the abaThwa for taking back their dance. They curse Bhonco’s forebears for refusing to kill their cattle, thus destroying the amaXhosa nation. The Unbeliever’s foolish forebears must take the responsibility for the failure of the prophecies.

“I for one think that on this matter of Nongqawuse, Bhonco has a point,” says Dalton quite unwisely. “It is your forebears who were foolish for killing their cattle.”

They look at him as if he has uttered the worst of blasphemies. Camagu suspects that the brandy has run to his head. No sober man, no sane man, can risk saying anything nice about Bhonco in the midst of such hard-core Believers. He is fortunate that they are in such a good mood after the successful negotiations that went completely in their favor. Otherwise they would be eating him alive. Instead of making a meal of him, they are dumbfounded.

“Has this child of Dalton been bought by the Unbelievers? Didn’t you tell me that he is on the side of the Believers, Zim?” asks the uncle.

“He is a fickle man,” says Zim.

Dalton doesn’t seem to notice the stir he has caused. He just goes on gulping his brandy and talking in a very careless manner.

“No, I am not fickle. And I am not on the side of the Believers. Neither is Camagu. We just happen to agree with you, or you with us, on this matter of development, of preserving the indigenous trees, plants, animals, and birds. That is all. We are not Nongqawuse’s people.”

“Well, John, this is not the time and the place to argue about such things,” Camagu pleads.

“The truth must be told, Camagu,” says Dalton. “Otherwise they will be expecting you to participate in their quarrels and their rituals.”

“This child of Dalton says our forebears were foolish,” says Zim sadly. “Is that why his forebears cooked them?”

“Will you ever forget about that?” appeals Dalton. “You people are just like Bhonco. Whenever we don’t see eye to eye on the smallest of things, you bring up this cooking business!”

“Foolish?” ponders the uncle. “Our belief is foolish? This child of Dalton has been bought by the Unbelievers.”