Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

“You set your friends on me. . to harass me wherever I went!” a callous Qukezwa yells at the hapless woman.

“I will not move until Zim’s spirit departs from his body,” insists the woman.

Everyone looks at Qukezwa as if the woman’s salvation lies with her. As if Qukezwa was responsible for her fate. She runs back to her rondavel, where she breaks down and cries. She is angry that they want to hasten her father’s death just so that he can carry their messages to NoEngland. She is determined more than ever to nurse him back to health. But the sick woman is just as determined to keep vigil outside Zim’s door. She is grateful for the bread and tea that merciful relatives of Zim serve her. But she will not be moved to any of the houses. She wants to wait outside Zim’s door.

Camagu comes the following day to see Qukezwa and Heitsi, and to find out if there is any change in Zim’s state. He sees the woman on the sleigh. He takes one look at her and his heart beats faster. His palms sweat. He is out of breath, as if he had been running.

“NomaRussia?” he wonders softly.

She lifts her eyes wearily.

“NomaRussia!” he calls excitedly.

“Who are you?”

“At the wake. . in Hillbrow. . you sang so beautifully.”

“So I did.”

“We spoke. Don’t you remember?”

“There were many people there. I do not remember you. All I want is for the pain to go away.”

People were dying. Thousands of them. At first it was mostly old people and children. Then men and women in their prime. Dying everywhere. Corpses and skeletons were a common sight. In the dongas. On the veld. Even around the homesteads. No one had the strength to bury them.

Twin and Qukezwa were determined to keep Heitsi alive at all costs. Twin had extricated himself from his lethargy. While he joined raiding parties that stole food from both Believers and Unbelievers, Qukezwa boiled up old bones that she picked up on the veld and in the dongas. Although the bones had been bleaching in the sun for years, she hoped to get some broth from them. She and Heitsi drank it as soup.

Twin’s raiding parties went as far as East London. They broke into the colonists’ stables and stole their horses. They slaughtered them and shared the meat. Qukezwa would see her husband approach from afar with a whole leg of a horse on his shoulders. She would rejoice, for there would be plenty of meat that day. The people could no longer afford to be disgusted about eating horsemeat. They forgot that they used to laugh at the Basotho people who regarded horsemeat, especially its biltong, as a delicacy.

Sometimes, even before he reached home, Twin would be attacked by hordes of hungry people who would grab the meat and run away with it. Or, while Qukezwa was cooking it, hungry thieves would steal the whole pot, right from the fire, and run away with it. It was a dog-eat-dog world.

And to their utter shame they did actually eat dogs. They stole the well-fed dogs of the colonists and cooked them for supper.

But death continued unabated. The colonists protected their animals from marauders with barricades and guns. Many Believers just sat in their homes and waited for death. Helpless mothers watched as children fell, never to rise again. Dying wives watched as the family dogs ate the corpses of their husbands. They knew that sooner or later they too would end up in the dogs’ stomachs. But then the dogs themselves would end up in some hungry families’ stomachs. It was a dog-eat-dog world.

“When things are like this, people will end up eating one another,” said Twin as he sat with Heitsi near the fire where Qukezwa was cooking some grass that they were going to eat before they slept.

“Only mad people can do that. Even at the worst of times we would never be reduced to cannibalism as the Basotho were during the Difaqane wars and migrations,” replied Qukezwa.

“Some people are mad already,” said Twin. “Hunger has made many people raving mad.”

“The prophets have failed us,” lamented Qukezwa. “We must move. We must seek refuge, or even go to the colony and seek help from our cónquerors.”

“The prophets have not failed us,” declared Twin. “We have failed them. We have failed ourselves. The fault is not with the prophecies, but with the Unbelievers, who failed to obey Nongqawuse! The dead will yet arise!”

“You can sit here, Father of Heitsi, and wait for the dead to rise. I am taking my child away.”

“Where will you go?”

“I will go to the land of the amaMfengu. I heard that they have given refuge to quite a few of the starving amaXhosa.”

“You can’t desert the prophets now!”

“Desert the prophets?” laughs Qukezwa mockingly. “They deserted us. Where are they now? Mhlakaza is dead. The girl-prophets were arrested. Your prophets lied to us. The god of your people is weak. He failed to protect his people. I am going back to the god of my people, the Khoikhoi people.”

Indeed Qukezwa went back to the god of her people. She begged his forgiveness for abandoning him. Qukezwa, daughter of the stars, returned to worshipping the seven daughters of Tsiqwa, the one who told his stories in heaven, the one who created the world and all humanity. The prodigal daughter communed once more with the bright stars that were also known as the Seven Sisters.

In the same way that she had led the sons of Xikixa to the land of plenty a few years before, she led Twin and Heitsi to the land of the amaMfengu. But this time there was no Gxagxa to ride. They walked on foot, their hunger belts tightly tied around their stomachs. There was no Twin-Twin and his many women and children. There were no cattle to drive. No pigs. No chickens. Just the three emaciated souls with calloused feet.

On the way they came across many dead bodies lying on the road. Some of the bodies had not finished dying yet. Their sunken eyes showed a little glimmer of life. Their cracked skin looked like land that had been thoroughly punished by drought. Their skin clung desperately to their bones. Twin and Qukezwa knew that they would be very fortunate if they themselves were not eventually counted among the roadside dead.

Although they looked like people risen from the grave, they arrived in the land of the amaMfengu, and found many Believers who had taken refuge with various families. They were provided with shelter in exchange for their labor. They looked after cattle, hoed the rich fields, and did guard duty for their amaMfengu hosts. This was very humiliating to many Believers who came from some of the noblest families of the amaGcaleka clan.

Twin and Qukezwa were quarreling all the time. He was unhappy that she had led them to the land of the amaMfengu, who were known traitors in alliance with the British. They had ignored the prophecies of Nongqawuse and had become rich by buying cattle cheaply from the Believers. Now they were slaughtering cattle and feeding the amafaca , the emaciated ones.

“Would you rather we had died at Qolorha?” asked Qukezwa.

He could not answer that, but continued to moan about the treacherous nature of their saviors. He threatened that as soon as he got strong enough he would leave. He would go back to the land of his forefathers.

“You have nothing. What will you do there?” Qukezwa reasoned.

“I will find Twin-Twin,” he said. But there was no conviction in his voice. “Or I will go to Lesotho or to the land of the amaMpondo and the amaMpondomise. Many Believers have taken refuge there. It is not as humiliating as it is here.”

Qukezwa just chuckled and said that maybe Twin-Twin would welcome him with open arms after all the mischief that Twin had done against him. Then she went to feed Heitsi with umphokoqo maize porridge and creamy amasi sour milk.