by Zakes Mda
‘It is alright, Noria. I will sit in the back alone.’
After explaining to them exactly where the building material will be found at the docklands, Toloki climbs into the back of the van. As the van drives on the highway to the city, he watches Noria talking animatedly with Shadrack. He wonders why he had agreed to sit in the back, when there was enough space for three people in the front. No, it is not the pangs of jealousy that he feels. He is of the tradition of monks. Okay, he will admit that there is a tiny bit of curiosity in him as to what it can be that the two are talking about. And he would like to know what exactly Shadrack meant when he whispered to Noria thinking that Toloki was out of earshot, ‘Your friend smells like death, Noria.’ And to think he was feeling sorry for him when he heard that his days were numbered!
Shadrack drops them at Noria’s site late in the afternoon. Toloki grudgingly pays him. Through Toloki’s connections with dockworkers and watchmen, they were able to get plenty of building material, mostly plastic and canvas. There are sheets of iron and poles as well. And nails and ropes and pieces of wire. Noria’s house is going to be beautiful, because the canvas and plastic come in all the colours of the rainbow. Noria suggests that since it is getting late, Toloki should go back to his headquarters for the night, while she guards the building material. ‘I cannot leave it alone here because people will steal it,’ she says.
‘Are you not afraid?’
‘What can they do to me? They have already killed my child.’
‘I’ll stay with you, Noria.’
‘You have sacrificed enough, Toloki.’
‘In fact, we can start building now.’
Although Noria feels that she is imposing on Toloki’s kindness, they begin the construction of her shack. First they dig holes for the poles. There will be a pole at each of the four corners, and then two poles at the door. After securing the poles with small stones and with sand, they will use the remaining poles as rafters. This will be the only shack to have the luxury of rafters. Then they will put up the roof by nailing the iron sheets to the rafters. After that they will cover the sides with canvas and plastic. Thanks to Toloki’s connections they have enough material to create a really elegant shack, without paper and cardboard, something much better than the one Noria had before. The finished shack will be the height of a man, which is the normal height for shacks in these informal settlements. They have reached the stage of fixing the rafters when night falls. But there is a full moon, and they continue through the night, constructing what Toloki feels is going to be a masterpiece. And of course, the moon would shine when Noria builds her house, wouldn’t it?
‘Your son’s funeral, Noria, whose shack was that where it was held?’
‘You were there? I didn’t see you.’
‘I only went to wash my hands, and left quickly.’
‘It is the house of the chairman of the street committee.’
‘Is he a homeboy?’
‘No. Otherwise you would have known him.’
‘Not necessarily. I left the village long time ago. And I chose not to remember the people from there.’
‘How did you leave the village, Toloki? Were you looking for work?’
‘No. I was running away from home.’
‘Why?’
‘I fought with my father.’
Fought? Actually fought with Jwara? No, Toloki explains, his father beat him up, so he ran away and vowed never to return while his father was alive. He did not have any money. He walked all the way from the village to the city. It was a long journey that took him three months.
Toloki’s odyssey to a wondrous world of freedom and riches. He walked day and night, passing through farmlands and through small towns that reeked of discrimination against people of his colour. For the first time in his life, and the last time, he found himself having to beg for food. It was so demeaning to stand at a corner of a street in some nondescript town, and ask for a coin from a passer-by. He never realised it would be such a harrowing experience to be a beggar, and he vowed that he would never do it again. The experience haunts him still, even in his days as an established Professional Mourner, and it is for this reason that he will not take alms.
He walked for long distances on gravel roads. He took off his boots in order to save them from wear and tear. He hung them on his shoulders from their straps, and walked barefoot.
He was dog-tired, and his feet were swollen and numb when he entered yet another small town. It was not different from the others, for when you have been through so many country towns they all end up looking the same. He sat on the pavement, in front of a fast-food cafe. His mouth was dry with hunger. The smell of fish and chips frying in stale cooking oil made him even hungrier. It had been days since he had a morsel in his mouth, and he had terrible pains in his stomach. It was as though his empty intestines were tied in knots. If he did not get anything to eat he was surely going to die, he thought. He was not going to allow that to happen. He would rather rummage for scraps of food in the rubbish bins. Or steal. To steal is better than to beg.
A man in overalls stopped and looked at him ruthfully. Then he searched his pockets, found a coin, and gave it to him.
‘Thank you, father, but I do not accept alms.’
‘You do not?’
‘It is true I am hungry, and if I don’t eat I will die. But I do not accept charity.’
‘So you’d rather die? What a stupidly proud boy!’
‘I desperately need this money, father. But I insist on doing some job for you in return.’
The man in overalls laughed for a long time. Then he asked Toloki where he came from, and what he was doing in that town. Toloki told him he was on his way to the city to search for love and fortune. The man laughed again. Toloki wondered what was funny about a quest which was, in his view, so noble.
‘Are all people such dreamers where you come from?’
‘I do not understand why you laugh at me, father. But I am willing to do piece jobs to survive on the road.’
‘I cannot offer you a job. I am just a poor labourer who lives with his old father and a lot of other labourers in a labour camp. I can introduce you to my employers who will give you a job. One of the workers left last week, and he has not been replaced yet. But don’t tell them it’s a piece job. They only hire people who want to work permanently. Or are you too proud to lie?’
Toloki assured him that he could lie as well as any man. The only aberration in his character was that he eschewed charity. He apologized profusely for this hang-up, and explained that he had no idea what its source was. The man bought him three fat cakes from the fast-food place, and said, ‘This is not charity. You will pay me back when you receive your wages.’
They walked through the streets, while the man in overalls ran a few errands. Toloki wolfed the fat cakes, and was suddenly attacked by stomach cramps. He fell on the ground in convulsive agony.
‘Hey, you can’t die on me now!’
‘No, it is not that, father. I ate too fast on an empty stomach.’
‘Stay here. I’ll go and buy you milk.’
‘Thank you very much. I will pay you back. I promise I will.’
Toloki was employed as a malayisha at a mill, which meant that he loaded and unloaded bags of maize and mealie-meal. In the evenings, he slept in the watchman’s shelter at the gate of the mill. He got to sleep there because he offered to help the nightwatchman guard the place, while he went to drink beer and play with women in the shebeens. Toloki’s intention was to work for a few days, and then to move on as soon as he received his first weekly wages envelope.
Some days he went to visit the man who had got him the job at the labour camp, where he lived in a shack with his father. The three of them sat in front of the shack and gossiped about the neighbours, and drank beer. Sometimes they discussed the state of the nation, and the protests and demonstrations that they heard were beginning to happen in the cities. They tried to persuade Toloki to forget his quest, and k
eep the good job he had. Such good jobs were hard to come by, they said, and it was fortunate for him that the owner of the job had just been sacked.
‘Why was he fired?’
‘Oh, they accused him of stealing some bags of maize from the mill.’
His problems, Toloki was told, began one morning when he reported for duty at the milling company. The foreman ordered him to go to the manager’s office, where he found policemen waiting for him. They took him away to the interrogation chambers at the police station. There they stripped him naked, and asked him to confess. But he did not know what to confess, so they beat him up. He screamed, and began to confess all the sins he could remember doing since the time he was a child. ‘That’s not the confession we want to hear,’ the police shouted. ‘We want to hear about the bags of maize you have been stealing to sell to one farmer whom we know very well.’ The man denied any knowledge of stolen bags of maize, and his interrogators got angry and punched his testicles. Then they tied him to a chair and attached wires to his fingers and neck. They connected these to the electricity outlet on the wall, and the man screamed in agony and lost control of his bowels.
‘Who is the farmer, and where does he stay?’
‘Honest, my baas, I do not know him.’
‘You sold him the maize, and yet you do not know him?’
‘I never sold any maize, my baas.’
Even with all the torture they could not get any confession from this man. So they let him go. Although he was not charged with any crime, the mill refused to take him back. He lost his job, and his manhood. His wife was very angry with the police for what they did to him, and to their conjugal life.
Toloki wanted to know about the selling of maize: did it really happen? Yes, some senior workers did this from time to time. A farmer would sell a truck-load of maize to the milling company. His labourers would unload the bags at the mill. After being paid cash for the maize he would then drive back to his farm. That same afternoon, one of the drivers and the foreman at the mill would instruct the mill labourers to load a truck with the same maize. At the gate they would pretend to the security people that they were delivering mealie-meal to some wholesaler, and sign false papers. They would then take the maize back to the farmer, who would pay the driver and the foreman some money. For a long time the labourers got nothing from these transactions. But they were aware of what was happening. When they began to grumble aloud, the drivers and the foremen would buy them a lot of beer and meat after such expeditions, and they would forget about the whole thing.
‘But the poor man who lost his manhood had nothing to do with the scam.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘He was just a simple labourer. A very junior person. Only the drivers and the foremen are involved in this business. Even I, who have worked there for so many years, cannot just instruct labourers to load bags of maize onto a truck.’
‘So is there nothing he can do now? Can’t he go to the law?’
‘Whose law? Was I not just telling you that it was the law that rendered him manless? At least in the cities we hear that they are beginning to form unions that will fight for the rights of the workers. Such ideas haven’t reached us here yet.’
Toloki was convinced by his new friends to keep his job, and make his home in that country town. These companions were like family to him. He envied the cosy relationship that his new friend enjoyed with his father, and wanted to be a part of it. They were indeed more like mates, and shared everything. Theirs was the closeness of saliva to the tongue.
The father did part-time gardening jobs in a suburb where white people lived. Sometimes he came with leftovers from the tables of his masters, and the three of them sat in front of the shack, and stuffed themselves with delicacies whose names they did not even know. They laughed and smoked and drank beer and danced to their own crazy off-tune songs. Toloki knew he could be happy there. For the first time in his life, he was treated like a man – even though he was only eighteen. When he shared stories of his village, people listened with genuine interest. No one laughed at his face. People were concerned with the more urgent problems of living, and with the business of creating their own happiness in the midst of penury.
One day Toloki went to visit his friends as usual. He was surprised to see a group of people standing outside the shack. Some women were weeping softly, others were wailing. He looked for the old man, and found him being comforted by other men behind the shack.
‘They have killed your friend, Toloki.’
‘But I saw him this morning.’
‘I have just come from the hospital. He died this afternoon.’
Toloki heard how his friend was burnt to death in a deadly game he played with a white colleague. During their lunch break this white colleague sent him to fetch a gallon of petrol from the mill’s petrol depot. When he came back with the petrol he found a black labourer, who was known as the white man’s crony, on the floor, struggling to free himself from his white friend who had his knee on his chest. The crony later said, ‘I do not know exactly how it happened, but I remember kicking the container and the man was doused with petrol all over.’ As he was trying to clean his face with a piece of cloth, the white colleague jokingly said that he was going to burn him. He then struck a match and threw it at him.
The crony continued, ‘The fire was so big that I was frightened. I went around screaming for help. But by the time they put out the flames and took him to hospital, it was too late. He was badly burnt.’ The crony insisted that his white friend was playing. He had played such fire tricks on other workers before, including on him only the previous month. ‘The same white man doused me with petrol and set me alight last month. I sustained burns, but I healed after a while. Although he is a big white baas, he is very friendly and likes to play with black labourers.’
However the man’s father refused to believe that it was all a game. He said that before his son died, he had told him that the white man hated him because he was doing so well in his job. He had been a labourer for many years, serving the company with honesty and dedication, and had recently been tipped for a more senior position. The white man had conspired with the crony to kill him. They were motivated by jealousy. ‘I cannot believe the many stories that are told, but I believe what my son told me,’ the old man said. ‘Why did the white man who burnt my son laugh at him when he was in flames? Why did he refuse to help him?’ But the crony was adamant that the white colleague was merely laughing because it was a game. To him the flames were a joke. When the man screamed and ran around in pain, he thought he was dancing.
Toloki went to his friend’s funeral, and solemnly listened to the Nurse explain how this our brother died. He heard of how the people led the life of birds, in fear that they would not see the next day. He heard other funeral orators talk of the wars of freedom that were beginning to take root in the cities, wars that were necessary even in that small town.
That night Toloki took his boots and hung them on his shoulders, and walked the road. He said he would not work at a place where the masters played such funless games with their servants. But first he went to say goodbye to the old man, and to pay back the money with which his deceased friend had bought him fat cakes and milk. The old man insisted that he kept the money, and wanted to give him more for provision, but Toloki said, ‘Your need is greater than mine, father. I was paid only two days ago, so I still have some money.’
Toloki spent many days on the road. He walked through semi-arid lands that stretched for many miles, where the boers farmed ostriches and prickly pears. When he ran out of money, he took part-time jobs with farmers. At some places, he joined workers to harvest the prickly pears. At others, he worked for merchants who sold coal on horse carts, and who paid him only in food, after he had loaded and unloaded bags and bags of coal.
Deaths and funerals continued to dog his way throughout. For instance, in one village he found the whole community in mourning. The previous week, in a moment o
f mass rage, the villagers had set upon a group of ten men, beat them up, stabbed them with knives, hurled them into a shack, and set it alight. Then they had danced around the burning shack, singing and chanting about their victory over these thugs, who had been terrorizing the community for a long time. It seemed these bandits, who were roasted in a funeral pyre, had thrived on raping maidens, and robbing and murdering defenceless community members. The police were unable to take any action against these gangsters, so the members of the community had come together, and had decided to serve their own blend of justice. According to a journalist who wrote about the incident ‘it was as if the killing had, in a mind-blowing instant, amputated a foul and festering limb from the soul of the community.’ When Toloki got there, all the villagers were numbed by their actions. They had become prosecutors, judges and executioners. But every one of them knew that the village would forever be enshrouded by the smell of burning flesh. The community would never be the same again, and for the rest of their lives, its people would walk in a daze.
Finally, three months after leaving his village, Toloki arrived in the city.
4
The sun rises on Noria’s shack. All the work has been completed, and the structure is a collage in bright sunny colours. And of bits of iron sheets, some of which shimmer in the morning rays, while others are rust-laden. It would certainly be at home in any museum of modern art. Toloki and Noria stand back, and gaze admiringly at it. First they smile, then they giggle, and finally they burst out laughing. Sudden elation overwhelms Toloki. Noria’s laughter is surely regaining its old potency.
‘I did not know that our hands were capable of such creation.’
‘I did, Toloki. I did. You have always been good at creating beautiful things with your hands.’
‘I don’t believe you, Noria. You are only saying this to be nice. You know what they thought of me in the village.’
‘Don’t you remember the April calendar?’
