Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

  ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘Oh, I just came, gran’ma. Just to see you and Noria.’

  ‘To see us for what? Are you not working?’

  ‘I got a lift from the truck of my employers. They came to deliver bricks for the construction of a general dealer’s store in a village not far from here. So I thought I would come and see if the baby was born yet.’

  ‘Well, you can see that the baby is not born yet. So what are you going to do about it?’

  Noria was already into her eleventh month of pregnancy, but there was no sign of the baby. The old hag blamed Noria’s own people for bewitching her. She, on the other hand, suspected the old hag, although she never before voiced her suspicions to anyone. In the presence of the grandmother, she told Napu what had happened the previous night. The old woman was shocked beyond words that an innocent-looking girl like Noria could be capable of inventing such dreadful lies about her. ‘What snake is this that you have brought to my homestead, Napu, who is bent on poisoning your relations with your own grandmother who brought you up when your own parents had taken to the world, abandoning you as a baby?’

  Obviously Napu did not believe Noria. But she insisted that she was going away with him. ‘I am not staying another night here with your grandmother. I am going back to town with you.’

  ‘She is not going anywhere, Napu. You cannot be controlled by a woman.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am going. If he does not take me with him, I’ll walk the road alone. The roof of my father’s house is not leaking; I’ll go back there.’

  Napu relented, and agreed to take Noria back to town with him. She went into the hovel, packed her few items of clothing into a pillow case, and stood outside, waiting for the road. Napu said good-bye to his grandmother, and they walked away. The grandmother shouted bitterly after them, ‘You Napu, you will see the eyes of a worm! You have married that lying bitch from the lowlands! Now you are going to spend all your money on her, and I will not see even a black cent from you!’

  By the thirteenth month, the lovestruck couple began to consult diviners and herbalists of all types. Where was it heard of that a woman carried a baby in her stomach for so many months? Experts mixed herbs for them, asked them to slaughter animals, and performed mysterious rituals in their brickyard shack. But still the baby refused to come. Napu finally ran out of money and could no longer afford the experts. He could not send any more money to his grandmother either, and she piled more curses on the hapless couple. Friends advised Napu to send his wife back to her home to work things out with her family. There was no doubt that That Mountain Woman had put some curse on her. When this rumour reached the ears of That Mountain Woman, she vehemently denied the accusation. ‘How can I put a curse on my own daughter? In any case, I do not mix medicines that hurt people. My medicines only heal and bring good fortune, and wealth, and love, and fertility. I am not a witch. I am a doctor.’

  One evening we saw Napu and Noria alighting from the bus that came from town. Noria was wearing an old donkey blanket, and she had covered her head with it so that we would not see who she was. But we knew immediately that it was Noria. Her willowy stature gave her away. She looked and walked very much like her mother in her younger days, when she first came to the village. Oh, yes, we all knew that when That Mountain Woman came to our village she was in tatters. She was strikingly beautiful, but was in rags. It was the unappreciated Xesibe who made her a person. Anyway, to go back to Noria, she walked home barefoot, as her shoes had long since worn out. Napu followed her hesitantly.

  When they arrived at Noria’s home, they found Xesibe and his wife eating the evening meal. When That Mountain Woman saw her daughter she wailed, ‘Oh, Noria, my poor baby! You are back!’ Noria threw herself into her mother’s arms and wept bitterly. But Xesibe did not feel any pity for her. He said, ‘Now that the world has thoroughly thrashed her, she comes back to us.’ For once, That Mountain Woman did not lash at him with her tongue. Xesibe was expressing exactly her sentiments. Encouraged by this tacit consensus, he went on, ‘She thinks that this world is her mother’s kitchen!’ Still That Mountain Woman did not lash out, but said tearfully, ‘It is enough, Father of Noria, we should just be grateful that she is back.’

  Then they both turned to Napu, who was just standing there like a chicken that had been soaked in water.

  ‘And I take it this is the excuse for a man you have chosen over us?’

  ‘He is my husband, father.’

  ‘Husband? How many cattle did he pay?’

  ‘I will certainly pay, sir. When I have accumulated enough money, I’ll come and pay.’

  ‘You have shown us how much you don’t respect us. Your people did not even come to appease us, and to negotiate with us, after you had kidnapped our daughter.’

  ‘I do not have any parents.’

  ‘You mean you sprung from a stone?’

  ‘I only have one old grandmother who brought me up. I did not mean to disrespect you, sir. I was afraid, sir, for we did you wrong. I wanted to work first, and have money, and come to make peace with you when I had lobola to pay.’

  ‘Are you now inventing your own customs? If you knew that you were a pauper who ate lice, why did you do dirty things with my daughter?’

  That Mountain Woman was more concerned with Noria’s ravaged appearance. She uttered a few choice descriptive phrases. These pertained mostly to Napu’s mother, and to her private parts. She did not forget to use the usual label that she stuck on people she did not like: that they were products of bungled abortions. Napu was taken aback, for in all his life he had never come across such stingingly colourful language. He immediately decided that he hated That Mountain Woman with all his heart.

  ‘Look what this son of a viper has done to my baby!’

  ‘It is not his fault, mother. I went with him because I loved him.’

  ‘My own daughter wearing a donkey blanket! My daughter whose father has so many cattle he can buy all the blankets in the world! My daughter whose mother grinds and mixes medicines that can heal all humanity!’

  We thought Napu would leave with his tail between his legs. But we were wrong. He became stubborn and defiant. He told them that he was not at all intimidated by That Mountain Woman, even though he was sorry that he did not go through the proper customary channels to marry their daughter. But he could see that even if he had done the right thing, Noria’s parents would never have sanctioned the marriage since they had clearly shown themselves to be such snobs. Unfortunately there was nothing that they could do about it, since he, Napu, son of a nobody, had married their daughter in front of the law. Xesibe protested that his objection to the whole sorry business had nothing to do with Napu’s pedigree, but had everything to do with the fact that he had disrespected them by taking their daughter without due process of custom and tradition. After all, he himself did not begin life as a wealthy man. He had been as poor as Napu, but had worked hard herding other people’s animals and cultivating the land, until he accumulated his own wealth. That Mountain Woman screeched indignantly, ‘Why are you on the defensive, Father of Noria? Why should we explain ourselves to this upstart? And why do you allow him to talk to me like this? Are you a man or just something that someone left behind when they squatted in the donga?’

  Napu laughed mockingly in her face, and left. Xesibe was secretly pleased that there was at last someone who could stand up to his caustic wife.

  Noria gave birth to a healthy baby boy after a pregnancy of fifteen months, when we had long forgotten that she was pregnant, as after a while we took her protruding stomach to be the natural order of things. In any case, we saw very little of her during that time. She stayed home and did not venture out to meet any of us at the well where we drew our water, or on the river-banks where we did our washing, or in the fields where we collected wild spinach. That Mountain Woman was very happy when the baby was finally born, and she attributed the smooth labour to her powerful medicines. She was particularly pleased wi
th the baby’s beautiful features. She claimed that he took after her own family. Despite the fact that her mother had forbidden Noria to ever contact Napu again, she sent a secret message to her husband, informing him of the birth of their son.

  The next day Napu swaggered into Xesibe’s homestead. Xesibe was genuinely pleased to see him, but That Mountain Woman wanted to know what the crude upstart wanted in her house.

  ‘I have come to see my son.’

  ‘When did you give birth to a son?’

  ‘My wife gave birth to a son, and I have come to give him a name.’

  An argument ensued. Napu had a nip of brandy in his pocket, and he kept on taking a sip from it in a very ostentatious manner. That Mountain Woman began raging in the language of the mountain people. Whenever she was extremely angry, she spoke in the language of the mountain people, and no one in the village could understand her. But it seemed that Napu was versed in this language, for he answered back. Maybe he was a mountain person too. They exchanged heated words for a long time, until That Mountain Woman got tired and broke out in our language again.

  ‘No grandson of mine shall be named after your people.’

  ‘He is my son, and I have decided to name him Vutha, after my own father whom I never knew!’

  ‘My grandson shall not be dogged by misfortune just because you want to give him a stupid name that means a burning fire! Don’t you know that the meanings of names are fulfilled?’

  Napu insisted that his son would be called Vutha. From time to time he took a swig from his bottle, which we suspected gave him the courage to duel so bravely with That Mountain Woman. She meanwhile insisted that her grandson would be called Jealous Down, in order to spite those people who had laughed at her.

  ‘It’s an English name! My son will not have an English name!’

  ‘That’s what one would expect from an uncultured lizard like you. For your information, Jealous Down is a beautiful name. It means that the neighbours who were laughing at Noria’s misfortune are now jealous because she has the most beautiful baby boy in all the village. And don’t you dare imagine that you are responsible for that beauty. It comes from my side of the family!’

  ‘Jealous Down! It does not even come from the Bible. If at least it came from the Bible, I would accept it as his church name.’

  ‘Who told you that it does not come from the Bible? Have you read the whole Bible? Do you want to tell me that you know all the names that are in the Bible?’

  The result was that Napu continued to call his son Vutha, That Mountain Woman continued to call her grandson Jealous Down, and Xesibe thought the best name would be Mistake, and proceeded to use that name at all times.

  After six months, when the baby was bouncing with good health, Noria went back to live with Napu in their brickyard shack in town. Of course That Mountain Woman was against the move, but Noria was as headstrong as her mother.

  ‘If you must go, then you are leaving Jealous Down here.’

  ‘Oh no, I am taking Vutha with me, mother. He is my child.’

  ‘Yes, she must take Mistake with her, Mother of Noria.’

  ‘And who asked for your opinion, Father of Noria?’

  For a while Noria lived happily with her husband. But then she discovered that he was having an affair with a neighbour. When Napu came back from work she confronted him, and they fought bitterly. She took Vutha and went back home. That Mountain Woman welcomed her back with open arms, but Xesibe said she must work things out with her husband, and must go back to build her family. He had a private heart-to-heart talk with his daughter while his wife was busy with her patients in her consulting room. He told her that he did not want a daughter who would be deemed a failure. Noria, however, said she would only go back if Napu came and apologised, and promised never to make her the object of disgrace and ridicule again. She also voiced other complaints against her husband, most of which she had been keeping to herself, in the hope that things would change for the better. The major one was that Napu was a koata, which meant that he was uncivilised and uncultured. As a result, she was finding it increasingly difficult to have anything to talk about with him.

  This last complaint did not receive Xesibe’s sympathy. After all, he had been called a koata for years by his wife. She ridiculed the brown blanket that he wore at all times, and said that civilised and cultured men wore jackets like the clerks at the general dealer’s store. Or like the teachers at the primary school. ‘But you, Father of Noria, are a koata who sleeps with his boots on!’ At times, she went on to say that all his wealth was wasted on a vulgar man like him.

  Napu came and begged Noria to go back home. As expected, That Mountain Woman ordered her daughter to ignore his pathetic pleas. But Xesibe’s secret advice prevailed, and Noria went back to their shack in town.

  Like all marriages, Noria’s had its ups and downs. However, it was the down side that came to prevail. Besides the fact that Napu was a koata, and Noria had reached the stage where she never let him forget this, she became increasingly frustrated with their financial situation, which never seemed to improve. Vutha was three years old. In a year or two, they would have to send him to school. There was no doubt that even by then their situation would not have changed. Noria feared for the future. How on earth were they going to afford to send their son to school? There were fees to be paid, and one needed money to buy school uniform, without which the teachers expelled the pupils. Then one had to buy books, and make contributions to the building fund that the teachers always demanded from parents. How were they going to cope?

  She could go to work. Over the years, the town had grown much bigger. Among the new places that had emerged were the hospital, the magistrate’s court, the offices of the agricultural extension workers, many other buildings (most of which were government offices), and a hotel which was always full of white people who came to admire our beautiful rivers and catch catfish there. Surely she could get a job in one of these places as a sweeper, or as a woman who made tea. But Napu would not hear of it.

  ‘My wife will not work, especially in those offices. That is where women meet men.’

  ‘It is my fault, Napu! It is my fault that I am married to a koata!’

  One night, almost at midnight, a drunken Napu came home with another woman. He ordered Noria to pack her belongings and vacate the shack.

  ‘Where do you expect me to go at this time of the night, Napu?’

  ‘I don’t know. It is not my business where you go.’

  So Noria took her few rags, and packed them in a pillow case. She woke Vutha up, dressed him, and they both left their home. Vutha was crying.

  ‘Where are we going, mama?’

  ‘I don’t know, my child. Ask your father.’

  A neighbour gave them refuge until the next morning. Then they caught a bus back to the village. Although Noria did not have any money for the bus fare, she was well known to the bus drivers and conductors from the days when she used to spend most of her time making them happy. So they let her ride free of charge.

  When Noria and her son arrived at her parents’ home, she immediately sensed that something was amiss.

  ‘Where is mother?’

  ‘She is not here, Noria. And what do you want here anyway?’

  ‘Napu has expelled us from his house. Where has mother gone?’

  ‘Hospital. She was struck by illness. And since as a doctor she could not cure herself, we took her to a white doctor in town. She was immediately admitted to hospital. They say she will be there for a long time.’

  We thought Xesibe would be happy without his tormentor, but again we were wrong. He claimed that he was miserable, and desperately missed his wife. Nevertheless, we could see that he enjoyed being master of his own compound. Without That Mountain Woman around, he was able to be very firm with Noria. Even though it would have been very useful to have her help in the house, he insisted that she go and find a job so as to feed her child. ‘Mistake is your child, not mine. I am not giving
you a single penny for his upkeep. You must go and find a job.’

  Noria found a job as a sweeper in one of the government offices in town. She left the village at dawn every morning, got into a mini-bus taxi, and arrived in town two hours before the offices opened. The nightwatchman opened up for her, and she cleaned the offices. By eight, when the office workers arrived, she had finished cleaning. She was required to be around to make tea when the big bosses wanted it, or when there was an important visitor. She knocked off at three in the afternoon, and caught a taxi back to the village. This commuting would have been very expensive, and indeed would have swallowed her entire monthly salary, had it not been for the good relations that she enjoyed with the taxi drivers. She was able to travel without paying any fares.

  Some days she went to the hospital to see her mother, who was slowly waning. The doctors said she had cancer of the womb. But she was always in high spirits, and her tongue had not lost its sharpness.

  ‘Who looks after Jealous Down when you’ve gone to work?’

  ‘He looks after himself.’

  ‘He does not even go to school?’

  ‘He’s still too young, mother. He will go when he’s older. And by that time I’ll have enough money to pay for him.’

  ‘Your father is a very cruel man. He has enough money to send all the children of the world to school. With a rich father like that, you don’t even need to work. But I know, he is doing it to spite me.’

  Vutha, meanwhile spent each day blissfully playing in the mud. He developed scabies all over his body. Xesibe said that rather than let the boy behave like a hog at home, he should go and look after the calves in the veld. Noria said that her son was not going to be anyone’s herdboy. Her son would go to school instead, and receive the education that had escaped her, and become a teacher. But even as she said this, she knew that the money she was paid for sweeping the government offices was barely enough to feed them. Xesibe seemed to enjoy to see his daughter suffer.