by Zakes Mda
‘I want to own it.’
But when he heard what the price was, he knew he could not afford it in a hundred years. It was expensive, he was told, because it was made of very expensive material: silk and velvet. He left with a very painful heart, for he really wanted that costume. He could see himself in it, an imposing (albeit stocky) figure in some of the greatest cemeteries of the world, practising his vocation which was slowly taking shape in his mind.
He went back to the shop every day, and sat outside that window looking longingly at the costume. Leaking from his open mouth were izincwe, the gob of desire. The owners of the two restaurants began to complain. ‘He is frightening our customers away,’ they said. ‘Who would want to eat our food while looking at the slimy saliva hanging out of his mouth?’ But Toloki refused to move away. It was a public place, wasn’t it? Didn’t he have a right to be where he wanted to be? At least if he couldn’t afford to buy the costume, he had all the right in the world to sit there for the rest of his life and admire it. ‘What can we do?’ the restaurant owners said resignedly. ‘Ever since these people began to know something about rights they have got out of hand. I tell you, politics has destroyed this country.’ So, day after day Toloki came to admire his costume, until one day the restaurant owners decided to buy it for him. ‘Promise us that if we buy you this costume you will never come back here again,’ they begged. He promised, and left happily with the nicely wrapped costume under his arm. He was never seen there again.
That was several years ago. Now the costume has seen better days. The colourful tassels are gone. The topper is crooked and crumpled. The velvet of the cape has developed a thick sheen of dirt, and the tights are held together by wires and safety pins. The black beauty has become almost grey. His pride in this venerable costume increases with age, though, like advocates of law who wear their old and tattered gowns with pride as symbols of their seniority in the bar. He will wear it, certainly, when he goes to see Noria, even though he is not on duty. It is a pity that Noria has never seen him in action. One day he would like to impress her with a flourishing display of his mournful expertise.
Maybe he should first go to the beach and take a shower. He has not washed himself for at least one week. Then he will go to Noria’s in the afternoon, when people are done with their household chores and are prepared to welcome visitors. On second thoughts, he will not go to the beach. It is Boxing Day and all the beaches are crowded with holidaymakers from the inland provinces who come especially to litter the lovely coastal city at this time of the year. People like to gawk when he showers. The smaller the crowd the better. Perhaps he will take a walk to the waterfront and entertain himself by watching the antics of the buskers and the ridiculous excitement of the tourists who visit the pubs, stores and theatres there. Or he might just as well sit here, watch ships come and go, and think of Noria.
Noria. The village. His memories have faded from the deep yellow-ochre of the landscape, with black beetles rolling black dung down the slopes, and colourful birds swooping down to feed on the hapless insects, to a dull canvas of distant and misty grey. Now, however, it is all coming back. Pale herdboys, with mucus hanging from the nostrils, looking after cattle whose ribs you could count, on barren hills with patches of sparse grass and shrubs. Streams that flowed reluctantly in summer and happily died in winter. Homesteads of three or four huts each, decorated outside with geometric patterns of red, yellow, blue and white. Or just white-washed all around. One hovel each for the poorest families. In addition to three huts, his homestead had a four-walled tin-roofed stone building with a big door that never closed properly. This was his father’s workshop.
His father, a towering handsome giant in gumboots and aging blue overalls, was a blacksmith, and his bellows and the sounds of beating iron filled the air with monotonous rhythms through the day. Jwara, for that was his father’s name, earned his bread by shoeing horses. But on some days – Toloki could not remember whether these were specially appointed days, or whether they were days when business was slack – he created figurines of iron and brass. On those days he got that stuck-up bitch, Noria, to sing while he shaped the red-hot iron and brass into images of strange people and animals that he had seen in his dreams. Noria was ten years old, but considered herself very special, for she sang for the spirits that gave Jwara the power to create the figurines. She had been doing it for quite a few years. Although her voice added to the monotony of the bellows and beating metal, we thought it was quite mellifluous. We came and gathered around the workshop, and solemnly listened to her never-changing song. Even the birds forgot about the beetles, and joined the bees hovering over the workshop, making buzzing and chirping sounds in harmony with Noria’s song.
The earliest reference to Noria as a stuck-up bitch was first heard some years back when Toloki’s mother was shouting at Jwara, her angry eyes green with jealousy, ‘You spend all your time with that stuck-up bitch, Noria, and you do not care for your family!’
Noria was seven at the time, and she and Jwara had spent a whole week in the workshop, without eating any food or drinking any water, while he shaped his figurines and she sang. We came and listened, and went back to our houses to eat and to sleep, and came back again to the workshop, and found them singing and shaping figurines. Even the birds and the bees got tired and went to sleep. When they came back the next day, Noria and Jwara were still at it.
Xesibe, Noria’s father, came to the workshop, stood pitifully at the door, and pleaded with Jwara, ‘Please, Jwara, release our child. She has to eat and sleep.’ But Jwara did not respond. Nor did Noria. It was as though they were possessed by the powerful spirits that made them create the figurines. Noria’s mother, the willowy dark beauty known to us only as That Mountain Woman, was very angry with Xesibe: ‘How dare you, Father of Noria, interfere with the process of creation! Who are you, Father of Noria, to think that a piece of rag like you can have the right to stop my child from doing what she was born to do?’ That Mountain Woman had razor blades in her tongue.
Toloki’s mother, on the other hand, was furious. There was no more food in the house, and no one could get Jwara to respond to their pleas that he should give them money to buy maize-meal at the general dealer’s store. He just went on hammering and hammering to the rhythm of Noria’s monotonous song. It was in these circumstances that Toloki’s mother, her stout matronly body shaking with anger, uttered the immortal words that gave Noria her stuck-up bitch title, which lived with her from that day onwards.
We know all these things, but Toloki does not remember them. He only knows that as far as his memory can take him, Noria was always referred to as a stuck-up bitch, and was proud of the title. How this came about, he does not know. Nor can he remember how Noria began to sing for his father. This is how it happened: he was eight and she five. They were playing the silly games that children play outside the workshop. Jwara had just finished shoeing the policemen’s horses, and was about to put off the fires, and to close the shop. He was looking forward to taking an early break, and joining his old friends, Xesibe and Nefolovhodwe, for a gourd of sorghum beer. Then Noria sang. Jwara found himself overwhelmed by a great creative urge. He took an idle piece of iron, and put it in the fire. When it was red hot, he began to shape it into a strange figure. He amazed himself, because in all his life he had never known that he had such great talent. But before he could finish the figurine, Noria stopped singing, and all of a sudden he could not continue to shape the figure. The great talent, and the urge to create, had left his body. He could not even remember what he was trying to do with that piece of iron. Then in the course of her game with Toloki, Noria sang her childish song again. The song had no meaning at all. But it had such great power in Jwara that he found himself creating the figurine again. From that day, whenever Jwara wanted to create his figurines, he would invite Noria over to the workshop, she would sing her meaningless song, and he would work for hours on end at the figurines. Sometimes new shapes would visit him in his dream
s, and he would want to create them the next day. Jwara and Noria did not usually work every day though, and the time that they worked for the whole week was an exception and a record. It was because Jwara’s dreams had been particularly crowded the previous night, and he was unable to stop until he had reproduced all the strange creatures with which he had interacted in his sleep.
We were not surprised, really, that Noria had all this power to change mediocre artisans into artists of genius, and to make the birds and the bees pause in their business of living and pay audience to her. In fact, one thing that Toloki used to be jealous about even as a small boy, was that we all loved the stuck-up bitch, for she had such beautiful laughter. We would crowd around her and listen to her laughter. We would make up all sorts of funny things in order to make her laugh. She loved to laugh at funny faces, and some villagers gained great expertise in making them. A particular young man called Rubber Face Sehole knew how to pull all sorts of funny faces, and whenever he was around we knew that we would all be happily feasting on Noria’s laughter. So Noria received all the attention, and Toloki none.
It is rumoured that when Noria was a baby, she already had beautiful laughter. We say it is rumoured because it is one of the few things that we do not know for sure. When That Mountain Woman was pregnant she went to give birth in her village in the mountains, as was the custom with a first child. Since we never had anything to do with the mountain people, we only know about the events there from the stories that people told. They said that nursemaids and babysitters used to tickle Noria for the pleasure of hearing her laughter. This went on until her mother had to stop the whole practice after baby Noria developed sores under her armpits. After that, when she was tickled she did not laugh but cried instead, which seemed to spread a cloud of sadness, not only among those who heard her cry, but throughout the whole mountain village.
We felt that Toloki should not have been overly jealous of Noria. Although we always remarked, sometimes in his presence, that he was an ugly child, he was not completely without talent. He was good with crayons, and could draw such lovely pictures of flowers, mountains and huts. Sometimes he drew horses. But he never drew people. Once he was asked to draw a picture of a person, but his hand refused to move. When he went to school, he would just sit there and draw pictures while the teacher was teaching. Come to think of it, neither Toloki nor Noria paid much attention to school work from the very first day they were registered at the village primary school. But then they were not the only children who did not pay much attention to school work. Toloki drew his pictures not only in class during lessons, but also during break when other children were playing football with a tennis ball on the road near the school.
There was the time when a milling company sponsored a national art competition for primary school pupils. Those pictures that conquered the eyes of the judges won prizes of books. One of Toloki’s pictures, the only entry from the village, won a prize. The big man from the milling company drove all the way from town to the village primary school to award the prize of books to Toloki. The principal asked all the pupils to assemble in the big stone building that served as a classroom for Standards Three, Four and Five, and also as a church on Sundays, just as they did for the morning prayers, and the prize was awarded in front of everybody. Words were spoken that day that filled Toloki’s heart with pride, and for the first time in his life he felt more important than everyone else, including Noria. After school, filled with excitement, he ran home with his new books, and went straight to his father’s workshop.
‘Father, I have won a national art competition. I got all these books.’
‘Good.’ Jwara did not look at Toloki, nor at the books. There were no horses to shoe, no figurines to shape. He was just sitting there, staring at hundreds of figurines lined up on the shelves where they were fated to remain for the rest of everybody’s lives. And he did not even look at his son.
‘Father, I have a picture of a beautiful horse here. It is a dream horse, not like the horses you shoe. Why don’t you shape it into a figurine too?’
‘Get out of here, you stupid, ugly boy! Can’t you see that I am busy?’
Toloki walked out, with tears streaming down his cheeks. How he hated that stuck-up bitch Noria!
If Jwara ruled his household with a rod of iron, he was like clay in the hands of Noria. He bought her sweets from the general dealer’s store, and chocolate. Once, when the three friends, Nefolovhodwe, Xesibe and Jwara, were sitting under the big tree in front of Xesibe’s house, playing the morabaraba game with small pebbles called cattle, and drinking beer brewed by That Mountain Woman (who always had a good hand in all matters pertaining to sorghum), Xesibe complained, ‘You know, Jwara, I think you spoil that child. You pamper her too much with good things, and she is now so big-headed that she won’t even listen to me, her own father.’ Poor Xesibe, he was not aware that at that very moment That Mountain Woman was sitting on the stoep, not far from the three friends, sifting wheat flour that she was going to knead for bread. She heard her husband’s complaint, and she shouted, ‘Hey, you Father of Noria! You should be happy for your daughter. You are a pathetic excuse for a father. Or did you want Jwara to buy sweets and chocolate for a thing like you?’ She had razor blades in her tongue, That Mountain Woman. Xesibe was ashamed, and his friends were embarrassed for him. Since that day he never complained again, and Noria continued to receive gifts from Jwara. But so not to offend his dear old friend of many years he told her, ‘Don’t show these to your father. You can show them to your mother, but never to your father.’
It was not only the razor blades that made people wary of That Mountain Woman. It was also because she was different from us, and her customs were strange, since she was from the faraway mountain villages where most of us had never been. We wondered why Xesibe had to go all the way to the mountains to look for a wife, when our village was famous for its beautiful women. That Mountain Woman had no respect for our ways, and talked with men anyhow she liked. When she had just arrived in the village as a new bride, she was held in great awe and admiration for it was said that, way back in the mountains where she came from, she once walked on the rainbow. Of course no one had proof of that. We only had her word for it. But what we knew for sure was that she was good at identifying different curative herbs, and grinding and mixing them, and in boiling them to make potent medicines for all sorts of ailments. Those days she did not practise professionally as a medicine woman though, but helped members of her new family or their friends when they fell ill.
We told many stories about her, especially when women gathered at the river to wash clothes. She did not seem to be bothered. That Mountain Woman had no shame. The story we told every day, with colourful variations depending on who was telling it, originally happened when she was pregnant with Noria. During the later stages of her pregnancy, she went back to her home village in the mountains. It was the custom that she should give birth to her first child among her own people, and be nursed back to health, and be advised about baby care, by her own mother, and by other female relatives in her village. She went to the government clinic every month to be examined by the nurses, and to get the free powdered milk, cooking oil, and oatmeal that were given to pregnant women. Every time the story was told we exclaimed cynically, ‘Oh, they have clinics too in the mountain villages!’
During that period a group of health assistants came to the village, and stayed at the clinic. They were young men who were being trained to educate villagers about primary health care. Sometimes they helped the nurses to bandage the wounds of young men who had participated in stick fights, or in brawls that involved beer and women. During the few weeks that they stayed there, the health assistants accumulated quite a reputation in the villages around the clinic, for they went out drinking every night and did naughty things with the young women whose husbands were migrant workers in the mines.
One day That Mountain Woman noticed that the cooking oil and powdered milk were about to run out. T
he whole family used this food carelessly because they knew that she got it free from the clinic. Even though it was not her day to attend the clinic, she decided she would go all the same. The nurses would shout at her, and tell her that she was meant to come only when her time was due at the end of the month, but she was going to pretend that she had come because she had felt some pains that morning. An added incentive was that she had heard from some of the pregnant women in her village that there was a new type of food being rationed out at the clinic. These were powdered eggs that the villagers referred to as the eggs of a tortoise. They tasted like real hen eggs when you mixed them with water and fried them in cooking oil.
She rode on her father’s horse, since the clinic was located in a valley over the hills, which was quite some distance from her own village. It is said that she was eight months pregnant at the time. At the clinic, she joined the queue of pregnant women who were gossiping about the handsome young health assistants who had invaded the valley with a blaze of town sophistication and class. The young women of the valley were gaga about the health assistants, and the men were so angry that they were heard on occasion threatening to castrate the young upstarts who had the morals of pigs. There was a tinge of envy in the voices of the women in the queue, since nature had deprived them, at least for the time being, of the pleasure of enjoying the attentions of the handsome visitors.
The turn of That Mountain Woman came, and she went into the room where she was to be examined by a nurse. At that moment, there was no nurse in the room. She stripped naked, and lay belly upwards on the bed as was the practice, waiting for the nurse to come and palpate her. Instead, one of the health assistants entered the room. She was surprised and ashamed, and tried to cover her nakedness with her hands. But the young man said, ‘Don’t be afraid of me. I am a doctor.’ Then he began to palpate her, and within minutes, the crotch of his pants was on fire. She felt herself relaxing with him, and they introduced themselves to each other.
