Little Suns

by Zakes Mda

  Mthwakazi’s people invented the sun. These white women can bask in it and enjoy it as if they own it, but they owe it all to Mthwakazi’s people. It is quite early in the morning yet they are already sitting on garden benches on the sprawling lawn of what used to be The Residency. They are all wearing white dresses, white stockings, white shoes and white hats. Malangana could have sworn they were nuns, like those he saw at Holy Cross in Lesotho. Perhaps The Residency has become a convent. It’s been rebuilt into a beautiful whitewashed building with big windows. But the women’s hats are different from the nun’s veils. They are like the panama hats that Sunduza liked to wear when he was smartly dressed. Malangana had thought such hats were worn only by men.

  He stands at the knee-high fence and watches one woman roll a big black ball on the grass with two other women standing next to her. There are many other big black balls on the grass. The women on the garden bench are talking animatedly and looking quite amused. They notice him and shoo him away. He smiles at them and waves.

  ‘He thinks we’re waving at him,’ says one of the women and giggles.

  They all break into giggles and shoo him away even more vigorously, uttering such words as: ‘Hamba, go away, voetsek!’ This last one amuses them no end because it is the language of the crude Trek-Boers and doesn’t quite roll off their polished English tongues. So they keep on repeating it and laughing at their attempts: ‘Foot-sack! Foot-sack!’

  He waves back and smiles even more broadly, playing the monkey.

  A younger woman stands up, takes a biscuit from a saucer and walks to Malangana. The other women give a collective gasp and squeal, one even hiding her face in her hands. Another one says, ‘Oh, Margaret, always the bleeding heart.’

  ‘You want a biscuit?’ says Margaret to Malangana.

  Malangana shakes his head shyly.

  ‘Come on,’ says Margaret. ‘It won’t bite you. It tastes good.’

  ‘I used to work here,’ says Malangana, as he reaches for the biscuit.

  ‘You speak English?’ This seems to be an exciting discovery for Margaret. She turns to the other women and announces: ‘He speaks English.’

  ‘This used to be the magistrate’s residence and it was called The Residency. I looked after his garden. I was what you would call a houseboy,’ he says. He does not find it necessary to tell her he was a prisoner.

  She is impressed.

  ‘Then what happened?’ She seems concerned. She looks him over from head to toe.

  ‘Actually, I came here looking for an old friend. Do you know a man called Sunduza? That’s who I am looking for.’

  Then he suddenly remembers that a white woman would not know Sunduza. She would know Davis instead. ‘I mean Mr Davis,’ he corrects himself.

  The woman calls to the others: ‘He is looking for a Mr Davis!’

  They relay the message, but don’t seem to know any Davis, until it gets to the woman who is bowling. She says, ‘Oh, that was a long time ago. The Reverend Davis of Shawbury passed on years ago.’

  ‘I am looking for his brother, Alfred Davis,’ shouts Malangana.

  ‘He passed on too . . . years ago,’ says the bowler.

  ‘What about the Reverend Davis’ wife?’ asks Malangana.

  ‘She sailed back to England soon after her husband’s death,’ responds the bowler, and her hands fly to her chest as she gasps. She has had a conversation in an unguarded moment with a dilapidated native about white people; particularly the whereabouts of a white woman.

  She yells, ‘Margaret, come back here right away!’

  Margaret stands there, puzzled; she’s not aware that she has done anything wrong.

  ‘Tell the vagabond to go away, Margaret,’ yells the bowler. ‘You encourage these natives, they start stealing.’

  ‘He speaks English,’ says Margaret, nevertheless walking back to the garden bench.

  Malangana stands there for a while, his body tensing and his nostrils flaring at being called names by the white woman. He and his people had destroyed all this with flames but in twenty years it has risen with a vengeance in greater splendour with even more arrogant people occupying it while he has been reduced to bones.

  ‘In case you are wondering who I am,’ he shouts. ‘I am the man who killed Hamilton Hope.’

  They all turn their heads in unison and look at him wide-eyed.

  ‘Hamilton Hope?’ he repeats. ‘The magistrate? The one who used to stay here at The Residency before I burned it? Don’t you remember?’

  They all burst out laughing.

  ‘Umhlonhlo murdered Hamilton Hope and we know where he is. You are not he,’ says the bowler, and then rolls her black ball.

  A heavy sigh and then Malangana hobbles away. He hates thick-skinned white people who refuse to be provoked into anger. They are all the same; in Sterkspruit and in Kingwilliamstown they refused to give him his due respect there as well. He must have the last word. He stops and glares at the white women, now at some distance.

  ‘I don’t care what you say, my spear tasted his heart even though he was already dead,’ he yells, though feebly.

  They ignore him. He decides to leave them with their arrogance. He didn’t come for them here in Qumbu anyway. He came on the advice of the blind man, the father of the nightwatchman at whose house he once slept many months ago; the man who had seen Mthwakazi begging in Tsolo. After Malangana had waited at the compound of Ibandla-likaNtu for two months because every day the aura of Mthwakazi lingered in the air, the blind former diviner came as one of amaxhoba who occasionally visit and was surprised to find that he was still there waiting for Mthwakazi. He said to him, ‘How do you know if you are not waiting for ukuza kuka-Nxele?’ The coming of Nxele. Nxele was the nickname of Makhanda, the left-handed Prophet. He was the military adviser of King Ndlambe of the amaXhosa when they were in a civil war with King Ngqika who was in alliance with the British. He was incarcerated on Robben Island where he died in December 1819 trying to swim to freedom. His followers did not believe that he was dead and were still waiting for his return. Malangana, of course, had no way of knowing if he was waiting for something that would not happen.

  ‘Umkhondo tells me I am on the right track,’ Malangana told the blind man.

  ‘What if umkhondo merely tells you she has been here but is not giving you a guarantee she will be back? Yes, we do return to places we’ve been, but not always.’

  ‘What else can I do?’ asked Malangana. He was helpless.

  ‘I don’t know. But waiting is not doing anything. As a diviner myself, I would go and see other diviners to smell her out for me. Obviously she is no longer a diviner. At least when I saw her she was not. She was only an acolyte when we worked together. Maybe she never became a diviner at all. You may be lucky and find that some of the diviners who worked with her are still alive and are still diviners. They may still remember her and may still have something that may help them smell her out. This may or may not succeed but it’s worth trying.’

  He grabbed the blind man and kissed him all over the face and head. People thought he was mad. So did the blind man. He screamed that Malangana should leave him alone. Malangana immediately grabbed his crutches and left Ibandla-likaNtu.

  That is why he is in Qumbu today. Sunduza was his biggest hope. He was the only white man he knew in Government. White people keep names of everybody in their books these days so that they can chase them for taxes. They know who is dead and who is alive. Sunduza would have helped him locate those diviners who nursed the Queen of amaMpondomise when Mthwakazi was an acolyte just before Hope was killed. Sunduza’s books would know those who are still alive and what their names are.

  Now he will have to do it the hard way. Walk to Sulenkama, try to find the old inhabitants and ask questions. It will not be easy. He has been there before, the time he found his family fields being hoed by strangers. People have been dispersed, their homes taken over by strangers. People don’t want to talk about the past.

  As Malang
ana hobbles back to Sulenkama he remembers the walk he took on this very path with Mthwakazi more than twenty years before – he, robust and youthful, resplendent in a purple satin gown, and she petite in an overly voluminous red-and-white silk dress, the bulk of which she had to carry over her shoulders in order to manage to walk.

  He remembers the laughter. It was the only time they ever spent together. Besides the time they did adult things in the bushes by the river. Which he was embarrassed about. Which she was not. This was the only time, and it lasted for eighteen miles, and it was full of laughter. And of stories.

  She told the story of the sun: that the sun was invented by her people, even though his people have named him Malangana, Little Suns, as if there were many suns when in reality there was only one – the one that wouldn’t have been there if it were not for her /Xam branch of people.

  Then she told the story in a singsong manner: ‘Two women of the first race; one an old woman without children of her own; one a young woman, the mother of sons; two women of the first race ask boys to creep up on an old man who was hiding the sun under his armpit, hoarding its light all to himself.

  ‘“Do not laugh while you do it,” the old woman warned them. “Do not laugh.”

  ‘The boys crept up on the old man while he slept and held him by the leg. And tickled the soles of his feet. He couldn’t resist laughing, and while he laughed and laughed, they kept their own laughter in their mouths, for they had been warned not to laugh. They spun him around and tossed him into the sky, where he remained spinning around and around and around with the sun forever peeking out of his armpit. The first people all sat outside awaiting the first dawn. The day broke, the sun shone, the world was covered in warmth. Everybody congratulated the boys for banishing the darkness. Only then could the laughter burst out of their mouths.’

  He stands and laughs and dances in his shaky manner as he remembers her ‘try and better that one’ little dance after telling that part of the story. It is as vivid in his mind as if it was only an hour ago.

  Mthwakazi continued her story: ‘But that’s not the end of it. Not everyone was happy. The sun found that she was not alone in the sky. The moon was there and was jealous that someone was trespassing on her territory. She attacked the sun, but the sun fought back. The sun cut the moon with a knife, leaving only the moon’s backbone for the sake of her children. Every time the moon grows the sun cuts her with a knife again.’

  And then Mthwakazi giggled and tried to cut Malangana with an imaginary knife; Malangana jumped out of the way causing Mthwakazi to trip on her dress. She rolled on the ground which he found utterly hilarious. He let her roll down a slope for a while before running after her. She was stopped by a boulder and he was worried that she could be hurt. But she was tough and boasted that she was not moulded from the soft Mpondomise clay.

  Malangana takes this road very slowly. He has no choice in his condition. But the past keeps him company. He savours the memory for that is all he has for now, until he finds Mthwakazi. His hope has been reignited. It had ebbed in the two months at Tsolo. Thanks to the blind former diviner the umkhondo on this road is stronger and fresher as he relives the stories of that walk.

  People meet him on the road and look at him curiously. He does not seem to see them. He is too self-absorbed. Some think he is mad for occasionally he talks to himself. He responds quickly and absent-mindedly to those who care to greet him, for they have interrupted something compelling into which his mind has been transported.

  When it was his turn to tell a story he remembers that he was still proud of the flames they had just left behind in Qumbu. Mhlontlo had shown his mettle. Many people, including Malangana himself, had forgotten just how much of a hero he had been in the past. As a king he had become mild and accommodating of the white man. So when he became resolute and led the war so bravely they said: ‘Ewe, nguye kanye uMhlontlo esimaziyo esakhula ke lo.’ Yes, this is the Mhlontlo we remember as a youth!

  Malangana remembers how he told Mthwakazi Mhlontlo’s story of heroism when he was still an umkhwetha, a pupil in an initiation and circumcision school. It was during the rule of the regent Mbali after the death of Mhlontlo’s father Matiwane. Mbali was reputed to be a weak ruler and during his time amaMpondomise were always in danger of being conquered by other nations. His rule was reminiscent of Mhlontlo’s grandfather, Myeki, who was remembered for being weak and cowardly.

  The story is always told of how the land of amaMpondomise was invaded by amaBhaca when Mhlontlo was in the school of the mountain being initiated into manhood. He was actually going through the circumcision ritual when amaBhaca soldiers attacked the initiates at the school and killed some. amaBhaca were led by Makhawula, the son of Ncayaphi – the very Ncayaphi whose wife, MamJuxu, had been given refuge by the regent Mbali in the land of amaMpondomise and granted the whole of what is Mount Frere District today for her and her people to settle after Ncayaphi was killed by Faku of amaMpondo. Now his son had turned against the hand that fed him and his mother and was attacking his erstwhile benefactors at the moment of their weakness.

  Malangana remembers how Mthwakazi’s eyes were all agog at this saga. He also remembers how impressed he was with her because most amaMpondomise girls of her age in those days were not interested in stories of war and statecraft.

  He recalls how he acted out some of these events, which prolonged their walk to Sulenkama. Sometimes Mthwakazi became a prop of war to her shrieking pleasure or dismay depending on whether victory or defeat was the outcome.

  The amaBhaca had reinforcements from many other smaller wandering groups including stray Basotho clans under Serunyana and Lipina. When they besieged the land of amaMpondomise the regent Mbali said, ‘We cannot fight such a formidable force. Let us surrender. Let us take out all our cattle and parade them in the open so that they can capture them. Then they will leave us alone and not kill us.’

  But Mhlontlo would have none of that. He and his fellow abakhwetha rallied the men to fight against amaBhaca. Mbali thought he was mad. He ordered that he be tied up with rope and that the cattle should be released at once. But Mhlontlo’s fellow initiates untied him. Using smoke and forest fires in a strategic manner Mhlontlo led amaMpondomise in a number of battles in Qumbu and Makhawula’s forces were decimated. ‘Kill them all,’ he said. ‘Do not come back here until they are all dead.’

  ‘Mhlontlo said that?’ Malangana remembers Mthwakazi asking incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ he remembers answering. ‘He was merciless in those days. Not like today when he says we should let the white people go free. He was only a boy, an initiate, and yet he saved his people and their cattle. But, you know, even then when Makhawula conceded defeat and submitted himself to him Mhlontlo stopped the slaughter and accepted him as a vassal chief.’

  After that war Mhlontlo returned to the initiation school to complete the ritual and came out as king. People honoured him as a hero king who was not afraid of war, unlike his grandfather, Myeki, who allowed amaZulu to devastate amaMpondomise because of his weakness.

  It is dusk when he arrives on the outskirts of Sulenkama. He is exhausted from reliving the stories and the walk of the past and also from the walk of the present.

  From the hill where Hamilton Hope had camped during the two-day stand-off Malangana can see Sulenkama. The smoke billows from the evening fires. Vaguely he can see trees in the vicinity of what used to be his house. A single tear drops from his eye, like the one that dropped on that day when he thought of Gcazimbane.

  Monday May 2, 1881

  It was the month of Canopus; the brightest of all the stars of the southern skies. The amaMpondomise people called it Canzibe. The month was named EyeCanzibe after the star. It was the month of harvest, and therefore of brewing and of feasting. It was the month of plenty in most years, save for those cruel years of drought and famine. This was not one of those years though. For most people this was a good year.

  Not for Mhlontlo. It had nothing to do with the capri
ciousness of the weather. He was missing Gcazimbane. He sat alone on a fallen trunk in a clearing deep in a forest in the Ntabankulu District in the land of amaMpondo. He wept. And broke into a song:

  uGcazimbane

  uZwe lezilingane

  Ndingumntu nje

  Intwehlal’ihlal’ifuduke

  Ndingumntu nje

  Intwemxhel’unge njenganstimbi

  Ndakubonga ndihlel’iphi na

  Gcazimbane

  Zwe lezilingane

  Gcazimbane/Land of equals/As an ordinary human being/I’ll have occasion to migrate/I am only human/I am not made of iron/From whose land will I sing your praises/Gcazimbane/Land of equals?

  And then he wept again. He was all alone. It was safe not only to weep but to wail. He wailed for a long time, and then the wail became a whimper, a snivel and a sniffle. He felt much better after that.

  His eyelids were heavy even though it was early morning. He and his men had walked the whole night without taking a rest. He lay on the dew-covered ground and placed his head on a mossy tree trunk. He slept. Not quite. He had to sleep like the proverbial hare, with one eye open. If the dogs of amaBhaca or of amaHlubi or amaMpondo sniffed him out he should be able to escape. Many nations of the world were after him.

  He could not leave that spot until his men returned from a hunt. And they’d better not find him bawling like a baby.

  For a few hours he would be safe here, he thought. Even if the CMR and their allies were coming in this direction they would be a day away. He had a good headstart.

  Yesterday he attended their meeting in disguise in the village of Chief Mqhikela more than a day’s journey away. His men tried to stop him for fear that he would be recognised and arrested.

  ‘You are playing with your life and ours going to a white man’s meeting even while they are looking for you,’ Malangana had said.

  But his king was stubborn as usual. He wore a knitted woollen cap and covered himself tightly with an old blanket. He took his spear and went to the imbhizo, of which the specific agenda was the hunt for Mhlontlo, at the chief’s inkundla. He joined the rest of the community members and listened to the Red Coats address them through an interpreter.