Zakes Mda - The Heart of Redness

When things are like this there is no balm that can soothe Bhonco’s scars.

Loneliness devours his insides. NoPetticoat, his once-loving wife, spends a lot of time at the cooperative society. She claims she is still a loving wife, and that her stubborn husband is the one who refuses to understand her needs. But even when she is at home, the once-uxorious Bhonco does not talk with her. He will not talk with her until she stops gallivanting with Believers or their sympathizers. He grudgingly eats the food she cooks, and will not even say when he is not full and he needs some more. When she is not at the coop she sits under the tree that used to be the venue of the harrowing dances of the Unbelievers, and gracefully smokes her long pipe. Since her rebellion she has gone back to smoking her long pipe. And to wearing her traditional isiXhosa costumes of umbhaco and beads. At the cooperative society she has gained a reputation as the best sewer of umbhaco, which are decorations of black strips that are made on isikhakha skirts and on modern shirts that are inspired by the isikhakha tradition.

Xoliswa Ximiya finds these habits disgusting. She had successfully weaned her parents from redness, until NoPetticoat’s rebellion. She pleaded with her at length, but her mother was adamant that she was no longer going to stifle herself with soulless European clothes. They were an utter punishment for her. She loves the clothes of the amahomba. She has always loved them. She will always love them. As for puffing on her long pipe, she is no longer prepared to suffer from ukunqanqatheka —the searing desire for tobacco — just to make her daughter happy. She has grabbed for herself the freedom to enjoy her pungent tobacco.

But Xoliswa Ximiya has more to worry about. She knows that she will never get Camagu back. He has decided to forsake all forms of civilized life and to follow heathen ways. He is a lost cause. She wouldn’t have been happy with him in any case. She stands for civilization and progress, while he is bent on reinforcing shameful practices and uncultured modes of dress. They deserve each other, he and Qukezwa. They will wallow in redness together. She, daughter of Ximiya, will soon turn her back on this village.

Nevertheless, she is disturbed by the usual wagging tongues of Qolorha-by-Sea. They say she has become a turncoat and now believes in the developments that Camagu and the Believers are advocating. Some say that she has changed sides only because she thinks it is the best way to win Camagu back. Yet others say that Qukezwa stole Camagu to avenge her brother, Twin, whom Xoliswa Ximiya ejected like a jet of spit only because he had no schooling. Gossip has never bothered Xoliswa Ximiya before. But these rumors are getting out of hand, especially this last one. She finds that she has to defend herself constantly, even to people she does not regard as deserving to walk the same earth with her. The sooner she leaves this heart of redness the better.

But this is not the end of Xoliswa Ximiya’s troubles. She wakes up one day and finds that the scars of history have erupted on her body. All of a sudden her ancestor’s flagellation has become her flagellation. She rebels against these heathen scars. She refuses to believe that they are part of an ancestral vengeance. She curses her father for resuscitating the Cult of the Unbelievers.

“Even if I had not started the cult, the scars would still have come when they wanted to come,” says Bhonco. “They have nothing to do with the cult. Even the Middle Generations got the scars though they knew nothing of the cult. It is a burden that a first child of Twin-Twin’s line has to carry.”

The Unbelievers were shocked to hear of the scars on their daughter’s civilized body. They thought that the scars had come to an end, as Bhonco did not have a male heir to inherit them. In all history, they have never been imposed on a woman. Everyone, therefore, believed that the curse of the scars had finally been broken.

When Bhonco was younger, and his wife could not have a son, they had tried to persuade him to take a second wife who could give him an heir. But he was so much in love with NoPetticoat that he refused to marry anyone else. People even said that NoPetticoat had bewitched him with a love potion. She was obviously a witch, like Twin-Twin’s senior wife had been. But both Bhonco and NoPetticoat had laughed at this idle talk.

Now here their daughter is getting the scars.

“What else did they expect?” ask the wagging tongues. “She is a man in a woman’s body. That is why no man can tame her. That is why even a doctor like Camagu was afraid to marry her. He knew that she was her own boss, and that she would not be controlled by any man. That is why she rules all those men and women at the secondary school with an iron stick.”

Xoliswa Ximiya packs up and leaves Qolorha-by-Sea. She has lost the battle for the soul of the village and for the love of Camagu. She has got a new job with the Department of Education in Pretoria. She is going off to more civilized places. Places with streetlights. She will be in a better position to consult specialists — dermatologists and plastic surgeons — to remove the accursed scars.

Once again Bhonco is devastated. Not only has he lost his wife to the Believers, now he has lost his daughter to the city. Worse still, he has lost the prestige of being the father of the principal.

Xoliswa Ximiya is too far away to hear the wagging tongues that insist that she is running away because she is heartbroken. Love has driven her out of the village, they say. And it does serve her right. She is getting a dose of her own medicine. She drove Twin away by being stingy with her love.

Camagu is sorry to hear that Xoliswa Ximiya has left without even a good-bye. But he has no time to worry about this. There are more worries at Zim’s place.

There is Zim who is refusing to die. He is hovering between the Otherworld — the world of the ancestors that runs parallel to this world — and the world of today’s Qolorha-by-Sea. The Believers appeal to Qukezwa, “It is because you are holding him with your heart. Please release the poor man. He has done his duty on earth. Let the elder go!”

Everyone looks forward to the pleasant life in the Otherworld. It is cruel to hold the elder to this earth.

Qukezwa is angry that everyone wants the old man to die. She is even angrier that she is being blamed for his state.

“How do you people know that this time my father’s time has really come?” she demands. “How do you know that he cannot be cured out of this state and enjoy the life of this world again?”

People remember that Zim wanted to die once many years ago. He felt that he had overstayed his welcome on earth. So he slaughtered a goat, by which he was asking the ancestors to give him the road to their eternal place— ecela indlela . But the ancestors refused to take him. And now here he is, sitting in the middle of his relatives, and staring at one spot on the wall. How can anyone be sure that this time the ancestors are ready to accept him?

“Oh yes, they are ready,” declares an elder of the Believers. “This time for sure he’ll succeed to go. NoEngland is very powerful.”

There is Gxagxa standing outside Zim’s door, neighing endlessly.

Then there is NomaRussia.

While Zim is busy dying, she sits in a vigil on the sleigh outside his hexagon. She pleads with him in a feeble voice through the cracks of his door, “Tell her when you get there. . tell NoEngland to release me. . to make me well again. . to take away the pain. . to take away all this flow.”

“He can’t hear you,” says a kindly old lady. “He is between the worlds.”

From time to time her friends — those who had harassed Qukezwa all over the place — bring her food and water. They sit with her and try to comfort her whenever the pain flares up. They repeat what they have always believed: that whoever caused her this is burning in the fires of hell. Their parents have told them that the igqirha who “worked” their friend to be like this cannot be a genuine igqirha. A genuine igqirha does not harm people. An authentic igqirha has been given only those powers that heal. This one who caused NomaRussia to have this constant flow that is now accompanied by pain is an igqwirha —an evil one who only causes harm. He too will burn in the fires of hell.