Little Suns

by Zakes Mda

  Hope, Mhlontlo and their respective entourages spent the night sleeping under the Scotch cart full of ammunition and in tents in wonderful camaraderie.

  Saturday December 19, 1903

  It is a nightmare that he thought would never return. It used to haunt his nights quite often during his Lesotho exile. He even went to lingaka traditional healers to exorcise himself of it. It was quite stubborn. It would leave him for a number of nights and when it thought he had forgotten it would attack him again. But as he made his way back to the land of his fathers, gradually it faded away from his nights, until the nights were so peaceful that the only thing that woke him up was the bladder that needed occasional emptying.

  Now it is back.

  It takes him by surprise as he sleeps rolled into a bony bundle under an old donkey blanket on an adobe stoep at the Ibandla-likaNtu compound. First he hears the sound of the water. He is not sure if he is awake or asleep; he hopes it is not rain. Summer rains have a tendency of falling without any provocation. As they did three days ago, forcing him to seek protection under a tree among the Tsolo crowds who were so vulgar their children didn’t know the distinction between Thunderman and a lovelorn mortal caught in a cloudburst.

  Soon it becomes clear that it is not rain. It is a river. The river.

  Each river has its own sound determined not only by the amount of water running in it but by the grains of sand and the shape and size of pebbles and rocks on its bed. This is the river of his boyhood, the Sulenkama River. Not the western or the eastern branches, but the southern branch, on the exact spot Sulenkama River meets Gqukunqa River on the particular night he sat under a bush with Mthwakazi with their feet in the water and watching the stars after doing the unspeakable.

  He is sitting under the same bush, his feet splashing impatiently in the water. Further into the water, a figure completely covered in green algae is swimming. He cannot see the face but he reckons it is Mthwakazi. He must have been sitting here waiting for her for ages. He looks at his fingers and his knees and legs. They have become bony. He looks at himself in the sluggishly flowing water. The skin barely sticks to his smiling skull. An occasional dead fish floats by. More dead fish fly into the sky and splash back into the river as the swimmer attacks the water with a flurry of backstrokes. But they are short-lived. Soon everything is languid again. A lone fly whines its way around his head and he swats it away with both hands.

  He looks towards the northeast; there are the mountains. The mountains of his youth. Now that he has been to Lesotho and has seen real mountains these are only hills. They still touch the sky, though they look malnourished and skeletal.

  ‘Come on, Mthwakazi, let’s go,’ he says.

  His voice is echoed by the hills. He wonders how they can do that when they are nothing but bare bones of hills.

  ‘I’m not done yet,’ the swimmer responds. Her voice is tinny and hollow and sounds as if it comes from a long way off.

  The rays of the sun as it moves towards the top of the hills reflect prismatic tints on the river, and on the surrounding bushes and cliffs.

  ‘Please, Mthwakazi, let’s go.’

  The river laughs. It has never laughed before. Malangana raises his head and rubs his eyes with the back of his hands.

  The laughter is not from the river. It is from the aged man with the white beard and the white blanket who was pronouncing on the Gods of nations on Wednesday. He has walked out of his rondavel to meditate to the colours of dawn and has perched himself next to the bundle that is Malangana.

  ‘You found her in your dreams, then, did you? In the flesh she’s not been seen here yet. It is as though she smells you and stays away, for she was a daily occurrence here for many days before you came.’

  Malangana unbundles himself. After staring at the sky and at the aged one, and after taking in his surroundings, he reassures himself that he is not at the confluence of the Sulenkama and Gqukunqa rivers but at the compound of Ibandla-likaNtu. He is a bit embarrassed that the aged one was present during his nightmare. How much he heard of it he does not know. What if he is one of those who can spy into people’s dreams? He just might as well open up to him.

  ‘I was young when this recurring nightmare started years ago,’ says Malangana. ‘Always me sitting on the bank waiting for her to finish swimming.’

  In the early years everything was beautiful. There were flowers and the water was fresh. There were birds. There were fireflies and butterflies. Both the swimmer and the waiter were young and fresh. The nightmare became a mirror to the metamorphosis of ageing on his body, and he hated it every night it decided to haunt him.

  ‘Why do you call it a nightmare when it is such a beautiful dream?’ the aged one wants to know.

  ‘Any dream you hate to dream, however beautiful it may be to someone else, is a nightmare to you.’

  ‘You are right but for different reasons,’ says the aged one. ‘There is nothing like a beautiful dream. All dreams carry anxieties with them. It may begin as beautiful, but somewhere it will carry some fear. Amaphupha kukunya nje qha.’ Dreams are shit.

  They sit silently and watch the skies unfold. Outlines of mountains and trees begin to distinguish themselves on the horizon above the low wall of the compound. The aged one is lost in the theological musings of the day. Malangana is digesting the morning’s interruption of his nightmare.

  ‘Did you mean it?’ he asks.

  There is no response from the aged one. He is startled when Malangana shakes his arms.

  ‘Yintoni ke ngoku mfo kaMajola?’ What is the matter, son of the Majola clan? ‘When I said amaphupha kukunya nje qha?’

  ‘Not about dreams. When you said maybe Mthwakazi can smell my presence and she is staying away?’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘You know you said it. Did you mean it?’

  ‘I was just talking nonsense. People come and go. They are here today, gone tomorrow. We never know when they will be here again, if ever.’

  ‘But how did a thought like that come into your head? They say you are a prophet. Could it perhaps be that the ancestors want you to tell me that?’

  The aged one stands up and paces the ground in front of Malangana.

  ‘Listen, if you want to give up your search, don’t use me as an excuse,’ he says. ‘I said one stupid thing when I thought you were asleep and you want to use that as a crutch, ascribe it to the ancestors? You’re welcome to that if deep down in your heart you feel your search is futile. But don’t blame me. Don’t you know that old men like me are apt to say stupid things? That’s what we do. We are old.’

  ‘I’m old too, but I don’t say stupid things,’ Malangana says.

  ‘Well, people age differently. You want to take me to inkundla for that?’

  The aged one walks away. Malangana shakes his head and laughs. He marvels at himself that, yes indeed, laughter has returned in him, however weak. He might be on the road to wholeness.

  ‘I don’t have time to waste suing you,’ says Malangana.

  The aged one stops and says, wagging his finger at him, ‘If I were you I’d go to the source.’

  ‘What source?’

  ‘To stop the nightmares once and for all. I’d go to the river where they are happening. Face the real river and tell it to leave you alone. See how different and how fresh it continues to flow in its real self. It should stop lying to you who are atrophied and decayed.’

  Malangana just stares at him as he disappears into one of the rondavels. He will do no such thing. His time is precious. He will spend every minute of it looking for Mthwakazi instead of wandering in the wilderness communing with a lifeless river. The aged one was correct in one thing; foolishness comes with old age. It hasn’t happened to him because he is not really old. He only looks old because the world has battered him and beaten him to a pulp and then ground him to powder. In the past few days he has learned to pass for an old man when it is to his advantage instead of taking offence when he is mistaken for one.<
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  The compound is coming to life. Fires can already be seen outside some of the houses. Amaxhoba are beginning to arrive. Most of the blind are led by little boys or by young women. The crippled brought by sleighs pulled by emaciated oxen are carried into the compound by friends and relatives, men and women, and are placed on the ground. Logs are placed under their heads as pillows, while others prefer to use their own elbows for the purpose. Some of the amaxhoba are able to walk on their own. They may have a limp here or an arm missing there, or they may not indicate impairment of any limb but even as they walk Malangana can see that they are just as broken as those who are physically wrecked. He feels fortunate that at least he can walk and can wander the countryside in search of his heart’s desire without anyone’s assistance.

  He needs to stretch his legs; he hobbles out of the compound. At the entrance women are coming in pushing wooden wheelbarrows with pots of steaming food. He can identify one of them as the woman who was assigned to feed him that first day. He has tried to avoid her in the past three days because she nearly killed him with food. She kept on piling and piling even when he told her he was full beyond bursting point. She shamed him into sweeping the plate clean because the world out there was starving.

  ‘You’re still here? Your Mthwakazi hasn’t come then?’ the woman asks.

  ‘Your eyes are not deceiving you. I am here.’

  ‘You’ve been avoiding my food? It’s not good enough for you even though the prophet said I should feed you? You think the blessings are good only for other women and not for me?’

  It’s not only food that she piles up but questions too. Malangana does not know which one to answer first so he just stands there looking confused. She opens a pot of steaming sorghum hard porridge.

  ‘That’s what you’re eating today,’ she says with a beaming smile. ‘With pumpkin and pumpkin leaves. That’s what I have in the other pot. As long as you’re here we’re going to feed you until your bones fill up.’

  This sounds quite ominous to Malangana. Sorghum hard porridge with pumpkin leaves and pumpkin flesh is the best meal any human being can wish for. It is the kind of food that is nourishing; that even mothers throughout the land tell children to eat and finish because it will make them big and strong. It is also the kind of food he would like to avoid, especially when it is given to him in abundance. He is salivating already. He hates the woman for this.

  ‘I only want food that holds the breath together, not food that fattens,’ he says weakly.

  That is why if he had any choice at all he would opt for the white man’s corn, maize, which just tastes like paper and is likely to leave him the way he is. How will Mthwakazi believe that he suffered for her if when they finally meet he’s plump and all filled up with nary a rattling bone?

  Before the woman can dismiss his wishes as those of a silly old man who does not know what’s good for him she is taken aback by a sound that she is certain comes from his mouth. It is the neighing of a horse. Other people can hear it too for they all turn their heads in his direction, but they conclude that there must be a horse on the other side of the wall and carry on with their business. The woman is standing close to him and hears the neighing again. He is frantically trying to stop it by closing his mouth with both hands while balancing against the wall as his crutches fall.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she wants to know.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. He is embarrassed. ‘Please don’t ask me that. It just happens sometimes. Or it used to happen a long time ago. It had stopped. Get me my crutches.’

  ‘Trying to escape?’

  ‘Just going to the dongas. Are you here to police the bowels of men?’

  She helps him with his crutches. He hobbles away.

  ‘When you come back this food will be waiting for you,’ she says. ‘You don’t get away with those blessings that easily. What a trick! Neighing like a horse just to get away from eating my food.’

  This thing of neighing like a horse, it used to attack him quite frequently in Lesotho. It started soon after the demise of Gcazimbane. He does not want to think about it. How Gcazimbane ended living inside him. He thought he had exorcised him and since coming back from exile he has not neighed like a horse, not until now. Not for a single day. And today he is being attacked by his Lesotho terrors: the neighing and the nightmare. On the same day too. He is back from exile, back in the land of his ancestors. They must leave him alone.

  He hobbles down to the Goqwana River. He hopes to find a secluded spot for private ablutions. He debates whether he will return to the compound of Ibandla-likaNtu at all after these embarrassments. Especially after the threat of nourishing food.

  He can hear the voice of the aged one, the prophet as others call him, booming in the distance and knows that the theological discussions have started. The devotees will argue with him, which is what he enjoys most, but the rest of amaxhoba will languidly carry on with dozing and swatting flies and chewing cud and scratching the itches of fleas and crushing lice with their fingernails. The women who feed them will carry on their business, indifferent to the theology.

  ‘When we started Ibandla-likaNtu we had a big war of words,’ says the aged one. ‘Some of us left the churches of the white man – whether the Methodists or the Romans or the Anglicans or even the French for those of you who are Basotho – to return to our God, uQamata. We wanted to leave everything behind. Others said let us bring the Book along with us for it says some beautiful things that we will find comforting and liberating. Others said no, it is a bad book, a book of lies and slavery. They said it is a book of hellfire, a book that is against amasiko nezithethe – customs and traditions – of our ancestors. I have been thinking and thinking and thinking about this. Now that our anger has dissipated I think we should talk about this again. I think there is no contradiction between the Bible and our amasiko. The Bible is a good book for it says what you want it to say.’

  Malangana can no longer hear what others are saying. But from what he has seen in the past few days there will be vigorous debates. He is surprised that no physical fights have ensued as some devotees do seem to take matters personally.

  He will return after his ablutions. He has to. He can still feel Mthwakazi’s mkhondo, although he is now confused about what it all means. Does it, for instance, merely mean she has been here? Then can you really call it umkhondo in that case? Of what good would it really serve him? What kind of mkhondo is this that only tells you she has been here but is silent on whither she went?

  Saturday October 23, 1880

  He would never forget this. And he was ashamed. She seemed to enjoy his shame and looked him straight in the eye and giggled. It was like that with abaThwa. They came from a different world and their ways were different. She thought Malangana’s ways were strange and foolish. He thought Mthwakazi’s ways were forward and shameless, yet much more enjoyable than the ways of amaMpondomise maidens. This tryst in the bushes by the river, for instance; it was something his body had never experienced before. Even the intercrural business he used to do with other herdboys could not match this by any measure known to man. He wanted to take the whole thing with him, the whole organ, the whole person, the whole experience, and hide it in his egumbini – his sleeping quarters.

  They sat on the bank at the confluence of the Sulenkama and Gqukunqa rivers. Gcazimbane let them be and grazed a short distance from the river. They just sat like that, silently listening to their bodies.

  The only thought that was running through Malangana’s head was that they had broken the law. He therefore had to take her to his home and place her behind the door. And then send his people to inform her people she was behind his door. When a young man did that he was admitting that he had broken the law by taking the maiden without first asking for her hand in marriage, but he was willing to pay a fine for that crime and then to proceed with proper negotiations for the marriage. But how did one do that with Mthwakazi, inzalwamhlaba, when one did not know who her parents w
ere or where they were located? She was a child of the earth – an autochthon.

  They were still sitting like that when the night fell. They forgot about Gcazimbane as he wandered away back to the village to his regular place of sleep among the cattle at the Great Place.

  ‘I want to marry you,’ he said finally, cued by a shooting star.

  ‘Why?’ The question seemed to be disinterested.

  He did not expect that kind of question. He ignored it.

  ‘If I place you behind my door how do I find your people to pay the fine?’

  She found this very funny and she giggled.

  ‘I would not agree to be placed behind the door,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? I thought we have an understanding. We did adult things already because we are looking forward to a future together. Is that not why you allowed me into yourself ?’

  ‘No one places anyone behind the door among my people,’ she said. ‘People would think I am mad if they found me sitting – or do I stand? – behind the door.’

  The abaThwa were not just one people, she explained to him. Depending from what branch of the people-tree they came – be it the /Xam branch or !Kung branch or something else – they all had different customs. She herself did not know this when she was growing up. She only learned of it during the wanderings of her group of people when they met other groups that spoke different languages and prayed to different spirits and espoused different values.

  Malangana thought she was telling him this as a way of turning down his proposal; she was saying they were from different worlds and therefore could not marry. He was becoming desperate.

  ‘What does it matter if we are different?’ he said. ‘Listen, you don’t have to sit behind my door. If you want me to woo you first, to court you, and then to send uduli delegations to your homestead to ask for your hand in marriage, as I would do with even a royal maiden of amaMpondo or abaThembu or amaGcaleka or any nation in the world, I can do that. I want to marry you. Don’t ask me silly questions about why I want to marry you. It is what I want to do because the heart tells me so. It is not because I have eaten the food that you carry with you. I have wanted to do so even before. I even spoke to my uncles about it.’