Little Suns

by Zakes Mda

  ‘With what?’ asks the man of the house. ‘How is he going to break the gate open?’

  ‘She is no longer here,’ says the woman of the house. ‘I could not keep the secret to myself . . . the secret that in our midst was a woman who knew Mhlontlo personally and had worked at his court.’

  She told other school people.

  A few days later she left. In the deep of the night the woman of the abaThwa people jumped over the gate and disappeared. She was afraid that the news of her association with Mhlontlo’s Great Place would reach the missionaries. And maybe even Government. When people talked of Government (rather than the Government) they meant the resident district magistrate and his minions. She feared she would be locked up in jail. The name of Mhlontlo sent fear and loathing into the hearts of the white people.

  The umkhondo was getting warm. And then all of a sudden it gets so devastatingly cold! But Malangana vows he will find his Mthwakazi again, just as he found her that first time.

  Thursday September 2, 1880

  Gcazimbane was full of tricks. He had this habit of taking off at full gallop, neighing and swishing his tail from side to side in mock irritation. Malangana knew that it was all part of a game. He just wanted his groom to run after him. And then look for him when he disappeared down the gorge. Gcazimbane enjoyed playing hide-and-seek. Malangana, on the other hand, was exercised by this kind of behaviour because it was the cause of Mhlontlo’s annoyance with him whenever the king needed his horse and Malangana could not locate it.

  ‘You can’t even look after one horse,’ Mhlontlo would say. ‘The white man’s jail has made you stupid.’

  Malangana should have been angry, walking the wilds looking for the horse. But who could stay mad at a fine Boerperd specimen like Gcazimbane for any length of time? He was hiding somewhere among the boulders down the hill. And the bounder did it on purpose, just to cause a problem for him.

  He whistled as if calling a dog. Gcazimbane sometimes responded by whinnying back when he thought it was time to be found. He didn’t this time. Malangana did not know what direction to take so he wandered aimlessly.

  Suddenly the air was filled with a strange combination of whirling and chirping and buzzing and humming sounds. The sky had been blue all along with nary a cloud, but without warning Malangana was walking in the middle of deep shadows. Above him was a dark cloud of swarming locusts flying in the direction of Sulenkama.

  Malangana marvelled at their stupidity – invading a month before the planting season instead of waiting till the fields were green. Their folly saved the land of amaMpondomise from famine.

  Unless they were the harbingers.

  At that moment Gcazimbane came cantering up. He was neighing with his head held high in search of his groom. He was obviously agitated by the sudden darkness and his tail was swishing violently from side to side.

  Malangana burst out into a belly laugh while Gcazimbane nuzzled and blew.

  ‘I thank the locusts for routing you out, you silly nag,’ said Malangana.

  He began to walk back to the village with the horse following him.

  On the outskirts of Sulenkama, children, maidens and young women were spread all over the veld. Malangana knew at once that the locusts had landed and were feeding voraciously on the grass. When he got closer he saw that the people all had containers of different sorts, ranging from clay pots and grass baskets to enamel basins. They were picking up the locusts that had formed a thick carpet on the grass, and were stuffing them into the containers. They were all singing and beating rhythmically on their containers. The children were laughing and giggling and prancing about on the hapless creatures. In the evening the whole of Sulenkama would be feasting on stiff sorghum porridge and savouring fried or grilled locusts.

  Locusts were destructive in the fields. But they got their comeuppance by becoming a juicy meal for the day and a sun-dried snack for weeks to follow.

  Malangana could see Mthwakazi among the locust gatherers. He made a point of passing her way, though it was a detour from his path to the Great Place. He stopped next to her and gave her a mischievous look, folding his arms across his rippling bare chest and leaning against Gcazimbane’s head. Mthwakazi surveyed him from toe to head and then back to toe, one arm akimbo and the other holding a basketful of locusts. She looked cheeky in her tanned-hide back-and-front apron, a single-strand ostrich eggshell necklace gleaming on her bare chest.

  He suspected she was impressed with his European trousers, though the turn-ups were frayed – most young men in his age-group wore loin cloths. He knew immediately that she was different from other girls. An ordinary Mpondomise maiden would have cast her eyes on the ground shyly. But this Mthwakazi was staring back at him. And she was giggling to boot, as if there was something funny about him.

  ‘I’ve seen you before,’ said Malangana. ‘You’re the Mthwakazi who nurses our queen.’

  ‘I know you too,’ said Mthwakazi. ‘You’re the man whose buttocks were shredded by the white man’s kati.’

  He chuckled. That was his claim to fame, the fact that he was lashed by Hamilton Hope with a kati or cat-o’-nine-tails. And the magistrate had done it himself, personally, instead of assigning the task to a policeman. After that he had summarily sentenced him to imprisonment. Malangana had served almost one year in prison in Qumbu. He had only just been released, and yet his reputation had spread. He knew that women pointed at him when he passed and whispered to one another: ‘That’s the man who was in a white man’s prison.’ Part of the fascination was that the whole concept of locking up transgressors in a building was new to the amaMpondomise, and Malangana had been among the first inmates of the new jail in town. The proud pioneers, so to speak.

  Gcazimbane nuzzled him at the back, pushing him until he staggered. He wanted them to leave, but Malangana resisted.

  ‘I do have a name though,’ he said. ‘I’m Malangana.’

  ‘Little Suns? Ha! Your name means Little Suns!’ she said in the language of the abaThwa which he did not understand.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘There’s only one sun,’ she said in perfect isiMpondomise.

  ‘Uyabhanxa,’ he said. That’s silly. ‘There’s a new sun every day. It rises in the east and crawls across the sky until it hides itself behind those mountains in the west.’

  ‘It is the same sun, you silly man!’

  ‘Silly Mthwa girl, did you see it go back?’

  She did not.

  ‘There are many suns,’ he said, driving home his victory. ‘Each day has its own. Some are small, some are big. I’m named after the small ones.’

  He walked away from the daft girl. The horse followed him.

  She was stumped for a moment, but soon enough she was struck by a new idea.

  ‘Come back here, silly boy. It is the same sun. When it sets behind those mountains it gets into the ground and then burrows its way back to the east where it rises once more in the morning.’

  He had no answer to that except to mutter to himself, ‘Iyaqweba ke ngoku lenkazana.’ This girl is improvising a story.

  He knew there was something wrong with her theory, but was not skilful enough to come up with a rejoinder.

  Gcazimbane was getting impatient. He knelt down on one foreleg while stretching the other one forward. Malangana jumped on the horse and rode away bareback. He needed no reins and no saddle on Gcazimbane.

  Malangana did not say goodbye to the annoying girl. He was fuming. There are many suns! Stupid Mthwa girl! Surely his parents were not mad when they named him Malangana – Little Suns. There are many suns! Indeed, he was not the original owner of the name. He was named after an ancestor, the leader of abaMbo from whom amaMpondomise descended. The patriarch who led them during the epochs of great migrations, and who was famous for his mystic powers and his prowess in the art of hunting people of the forest, as leopards were called.

  From the time Malangana was a little boy he was taught to recite the genealogy of hi
s people spanning some three hundred years or so. To the rhythm of the gentle movement of the horse he sang and chanted it, mixing it with his own praises that he had composed as part of the graduation ritual from the initiation school of the mountain.

  Gcazimbane trotted until he stopped at the entrance of the Great Place. As he dismounted Malangana cursed Mthwakazi once more. She would need to be straightened out about the number of suns out there. He would not be defeated by a girl that easily.

  Sunday December 13, 1903

  This thing they call umkhondo, it works in different ways for different people. For the abaThwa, reputed to be the best trackers in the world, it works through the eyes. They are able to see the trail where no one else can. Even on the grass or on the most luxuriant foliage or on dead leaves or on rocky terrain they can see footprints as if they were left on soft wet sand. Dogs, on the other hand, do not depend on their eyes but on their nostrils. They can sniff umkhondo and follow it until they catch their quarry. Malangana is neither of the abaThwa people nor of the dog clan. He has to use other instincts to follow umkhondo. He does not know how it works but he gets a feeling when the trail gets warm on the tracks of Mthwakazi. When his bones begin to rattle he knows that the trail is getting warmer.

  Sometimes he can smell Mthwakazi’s aura. Especially when the wind is blowing from the hills. Yes, he smells the aura, though he can’t describe to anyone what an aura smells like. It is one of those things that you only know when you feel it or, in his case, when you smell it. Sometimes it becomes so strong that it forces him to stand alone in the veld and wail like a woman who has just been informed of the death of her husband. He shivers like one standing naked on the snows of uLundi, and his bones rattle. And this happens despite the warmth of spring or the heat of summer.

  His rattling bones have led him to this place. He stands under a peach tree at the edge of a corn field. The branches cast their shade on the footpath between the fields. The peaches hang like small balls and their smell of greenness wafts towards him intermittently, depending on the direction of the fickle breeze.

  A few yards away five women are hoeing. They pay no attention to him. Occasionally they break into humming a song, one of them in split-tone. Another one tells a joke. They all break into boisterous laughter as they ruthlessly attack the weeds between immature maize shoots.

  Malangana just stands there staring at them. He knows that field. It used to belong to his family. Or more accurately to his mother, one of Matiwane’s very junior wives – she of the Iqadi House whose main function was to support the Great House. Matiwane was Mhlontlo’s father. Malangana was therefore Mhlontlo’s brother from the junior house. Of course, according to the customs of the governing English, Malangana was Mhlontlo’s half-brother instead of brother. As the first-born son of the Great House Mhlontlo was the king of the amaMpondomise people and Malangana was nothing more than Mhlontlo’s servant. Malangana was nevertheless proud of the royal blood that flowed in his veins.

  Now strangers are hoeing the field. It no longer belongs to his family. Nothing belongs to his family any more. There is no family.

  ‘Allow me to ask a question, women of the amaMfengu people,’ yells Malangana after watching their antics for a while.

  They do not hear him. He repeats his request, this time louder. It is a strain to shout. He remembers the days when he could stand on top of a hill and his voice would carry across the valley, reverberating to the next hill. He picks up a green peach from the ground and throws it in their direction. The women stop and glare at him.

  ‘Hehake, yintoni ngelixhego?’ says one of the women. What is wrong with this old man?

  ‘Sorry, I did not mean to harm you. I thought one of you was Mthwakazi.’

  ‘Yho! This xhego! Do we look like abaThwa?’

  He is getting used to being called xhego or khehla, old man. He doesn’t protest any more. He has come to the conclusion that it is stupid to protest when people choose to give you a label that comes with honour and expectations of wisdom.

  ‘No, you don’t. It’s just that umkhondo led me here, and I couldn’t see you properly. Some of you are short enough to be mistaken for abaThwa from a distance.’

  They laugh.

  ‘I did not mean it as a joke, women of amaMfengu. Mthwakazi is not a laughing matter.’

  ‘He is insulting us, calling us amaMfengu,’ says one of the women.

  ‘Masimyek’enjalo,’ says another. Let’s leave him with his own foolishness.

  ‘We are not amaMfengu,’ says a third woman adamantly. ‘We are amaHlubi and amaBhele. We shouldn’t allow these people to continue insulting us with this amaMfengu label.’

  Malangana should have remembered that these interlopers who have taken over the lands of amaMpondomise as a reward for fighting on the side of the British hate to be called amaMfengu, which means refugees.

  A horseman in a black suit, bowler hat and brown riding boots comes galloping and wielding a whip. He ignores Malangana and rides straight to the hoeing women. They drop their hoes as, screaming, they run off helter-skelter. He does not lash them with the whip though, but cracks it at their heels.

  ‘It is the day of the Lord, you heathens,’ he says.

  He does not pursue them further but rides back to Malangana under the tree.

  ‘They must respect the Sabbath,’ he says as he brandishes a Bible. ‘It says so right here in the book of books.’

  ‘I’m not a person of the book,’ says Malangana.

  ‘No work is permitted on the day of the Lord. It is the day reserved only for praising his name.’

  What a vainglorious man this Lord must be, reserving one whole day in a week for people to do nothing but praise him. What a needy man! What a self-aggrandising man! But Malangana does not voice these thoughts. He just stands there looking up at the man sitting pompously on the finest beast since Gcazimbane.

  The thought of Mhlontlo’s horse forces a tear down Malangana’s cheek despite himself. He is angry that he cannot hold it back and that a man of the amaMfengu people sees him in such a shameful state. The man, on the other hand, just looks at him curiously. And then he dismounts and gives him a handkerchief. Malangana shakes his head and withdraws his hands to his chest.

  ‘Something is eating you,’ says the man. ‘Perhaps your own sins. It looks like the world has not been very kind to you. You must come with me.’

  ‘Nothing is eating me,’ says Malangana, and he tries to hobble away on his crutches. The man stands in front of him.

  ‘It is for your own good. I am the preacherman and I am on my way to a church service. We’ll pray for you and perhaps, if the spirit moves you enough, you will testify and be saved from whatever has been eating you to the extent that you’re nothing but bones.’

  ‘I’m not one of your church people and I am not about to start now.’

  Malangana tries to fight him away, but the man is too strong for him. He bundles him on to his horse, almost at its neck, and mounts the saddle behind him. Malangana succumbs in humiliation and the horse canters away up the escarpment to the village. Malangana looks back and can see the women at a distance walking back to the field to resume their hoeing. The man can see them too but decides their souls are not worth the trouble at this moment, there are more urgent things that need his attention, particularly the rousing sermon he plans to deliver.

  The preacherman assures Malangana that he will be fine and will regain his humanity as soon as he accepts the Lord. Malangana’s mind is more preoccupied with the object of his search than regaining the humanity he never knew he had lost. How did Mthwakazi’s aura get there if she has not been there recently? He begins to doubt what he believed to be umkhondo. Perhaps it is the aura that Mthwakazi left when she was here once, maybe months or years ago. If that is the case then it certainly will complicate his mission.

  Even as the horse approaches the church, a sandstone building with a red corrugated-iron roof, a boy hits the gong that hangs on a pole. He does
so repeatedly and the people walk into the church. Many of the women are wearing their manyano – the Mothers’ Union – uniforms of black skirts, red shirts, white bibs and white hats. They remind Malangana of the Red Coats against whom he fought the war that resulted in his exile. He could see them in his mind, they and their amaMfengu policemen in khaki uniforms, destroying his family’s crops with fire and confiscating amaMpondomise cattle.

  The preacherman helps him dismount and asks another man to look after him.

  ‘He is our guest,’ says the preacherman. ‘He has come to find the Lord.’

  This Lord who must be found, is he lost? Why should it be his responsibility to find him? But again Malangana does not utter these questions. He hobbles behind his minder into the church.

  The preacherman leads his congregation with a hymn. His voice is booming and his eyes threaten to pop out of their sockets. Noyana, noyana phezulu? Are you going, are you going to heaven? This question excites the congregation and they dance in their places, clapping their hands or their hymnals and Bibles. Malangana’s minder is seized by the ecstasy of the moment and does not notice him hobbling out of the church. The preacherman does see him because he is facing the congregation and the door, but there is nothing he can do about it. He cannot leave the pulpit to stop this one sinner from escaping from the Lord. Anyway, it is the sinner’s loss. He did his best to save him.

  The sinner wanders aimlessly on a footpath away from the village. There is no longer any mkhondo to follow, but he will walk on and on. He will ask the people he meets, especially the older ones who might have known Mthwakazi when she lived here at Sulenkama during the glorious days of King Mhlontlo. He will not get tired of asking even if sometimes he is answered with insults. Ultimately somebody is bound to remember the Bushman girl who nursed the queen.

  It is early evening when he walks into the town of Qumbu. He has walked all the eighteen miles from Sulenkama on his crutches and was not even aware where he was going.