Zakes Mda - Cion

“Orpah, you haven’t met the man from Africa,” says Ruth by way of introduction.

I take a step toward her with my arm stretched out and I say: “My name is Toloki, miss. It is my pleasure to meet you. I am a fan of your beautiful music.”

She recoils, moving backward toward the door, ignoring my hand. She actually pulls her hand away when I try to reach for it. It seems she finds me repulsive and wants to avoid me at all costs. I am wondering what could be the reason for such resentment as she reverses out of the room.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about our Orpah,” says Ruth. “She’s got issues. And no one can do nothing about that.”

Through the window I can see Orpah out there on the swing. She has her head on Mahlon Quigley’s shoulder and is weeping uncontrollably. Mahlon is staring into nothingness and is caressing her arm to the rhythm of the slow-swaying swing.

As usual Orpah is not at the dinner table. And I have not heard her music today. Somehow I miss it. The silence leaves a hole in me. Don’t ask me why. I am sitting with Ruth, Obed and Mahlon Quigley, yet all of a sudden I feel lonely, as if someone very important in my life has suddenly taken leave of me.

Today’s speciality is hot dogs with carrot and cilantro relish. The carrots and the cilantro are from Ruth’s backyard garden. She leaves the carrots in the garden, waiting for the ground to get cold, because the colder the ground the sweeter the carrot. In the morning when we were leaving for Athens I saw her digging them out and now she has made the sweetest of relishes from them. The cilantro, on the other hand, went to seed in the summer and she says she picked it quite early in the fall in order to keep it fresh. She laments that she had to buy tomatoes because she no longer has them in her garden. It is against her principles to buy tomatoes or any kind of vegetable because her people have always raised their own food. Did I know that her people—“them Indian people,” that is — gave the world tomatoes? And corn? And potatoes? I congratulate her on it, and she turns to Obed and orders: “Take some hot dogs to your sister.”

“It won’t help, Ma,” says Obed gleefully, as he takes two buns and puts hot dogs in each of them. “Maybe you should tell her you’re sorry.”

“I ain’t sorry for nothing,” says Ruth adamantly.

Obed takes the hot dogs, ketchup, mustard and relish to Orpah’s room. I don’t know why today Ruth is concerned that Orpah should eat. Usually when she has not turned up for dinner she only exclaims that “the girl will blow away” and then we continue with our meal as if nothing has happened. For some reason today she sends Obed to take her food to her room, as if it is some peace offering.

Ruth wants to hear about my day in Athens. Did I manage to fix my papers? I avoid answering that particular question because I don’t want to lie to her. As it is I am burdened enough already trying to keep Obed’s secret from her — both his misadventure at the sorority house and the mediation. I find the load too heavy to bear and I am unhappy with myself for promising him, after he begged me again and again on our way back from the mediation, that I would keep the secret.

Instead I tell her about the sad demonstration we saw on Court Street.

“Uh-uh, now you gonna get her started, man,” says Obed, dreading another one of his mother’s political lectures.

But there is no stopping Ruth when she is provoked into analyzing the ills of politicians. She believes that you cannot totally trust politicians because politicians crucified Jesus Christ. George W. Bush is an exception. He talks to God. And God talks to him. Very much like the prophets of the Old Testament.

As for Kerry, God would never have allowed him to ruin America because America is a chosen nation. Did we know that Kerry asked the United Nations to rule America? She heard him with her own ears saying so on television.

“How can he ask other nations to rule America when America is a super-nation?” she asks in dismay.

There is no end to Kerry’s wickedness. He supports abortion, which is against the laws of God. He supports marriage between man and man; and between woman and woman. Again, she heard Kerry with her own ears saying this. When Obed argues that Kerry never said such a thing but has insisted that issues pertaining to marriage should be addressed by the states rather than through a constitutional amendment, and that Kerry himself believes in marriage between man and woman, Ruth dismisses him as an ignoramus who never watches the news. It will be a disaster if anyone changes God’s laws of marriage. Some men — and they are already doing it here in Kilvert — will have harems of women, make them all pregnant and collect welfare. The taxpayer will be paying for all this, all because of the likes of Kerry.

She pages through the Bible, which she keeps handy on a sideboard next to the dining room table. She reads from Leviticus 18:22: You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. And to corroborate that point she goes to a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans 1:26–27: For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. She is about to read from another letter that the same Paul wrote to the Corinthians I 6:9–10, but Obed has had enough. He declares that Paul was obsessed with homosexuality. He must have been a closet homosexual as is the case with many homophobes. Ruth is scandalized by this blasphemy, especially because it is uttered in the presence of a visitor. Obed needs to pray to save his soul from eternal damnation.

She feels very sorry for me after I make the mistake of telling her that in South Africa gay rights are no longer an issue since they are protected by the constitution. In that country the courts have pronounced that the common law stipulation that marriage is between man and woman is unconstitutional, and have given the government two years for parliament to amend the law to allow for gay marriages.

“Todoloo! Your country is Sodom and Gomorrah,” she proclaims. “I’m glad you came to the good ol’ U. S. of A. to escape the death and pestilence that the Lord is surely gonna visit on Africa.”

“On South Africa, to be exact,” I correct her, hoping that narrowing God’s wrath to only one country will comfort her a bit. “The rest of Africa doesn’t have such laws. I think the rest of Africa would rather agree with you.”

But Ruth hasn’t finished with John Kerry yet. He is a traitor, she says. He even speaks French, a fact he tried to hide but that was exposed by the vigilant Fox News. He is so wishy-washy he is likely to be a drinker of French wine and an eater of French toast when all good people the world over are boycotting everything French. Didn’t we all see him on television? He looked ridiculous creeping around in the wilderness shooting geese in order to prove that he was not a liberal.

She breaks out laughing at the strange image of a camouflaged and gun-toting Mr. Kerry bumbling in the woods, which obviously is still quite vivid in her mind. I can see what Ruth is talking about. The man tried to play to a jingoistic gallery but it did not applaud. It knew he was a fake. He only wanted to win their favor and as soon as he got it he would surely lead the country down a ruinous path of personal freedoms.

No one interrupts Ruth when she is on her political platform, except an occasional snide remark from Obed, who obviously does not share his mama’s politics but would rather not prolong the agony of sitting through another harangue by debating with her. Mahlon Quigley, on the other hand, just sits there and smiles. I have caught Ruth stealing a glance at him and breaking into a soft smile of her own, even in the middle of her fulminations against Kerry. He returns a sly look and the smile on his lips creeps to his eyes. It is obvious to me that the two are still very much in love.