Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

‘Please let me come with you, Toloki. I want to see how you mourn.’

  ‘You are welcome to come with me, Noria. Let us go right away. I do not want to be late.’

  ‘I am ready. Let me just put my roses in a bottle of water first.’

  At the cemetery Toloki sits on one of the five mounds, and groans, and wails, and produces other new sounds that he has recently invented especially for mass funerals with political overtones. These sounds are loosely based on chants that youths utter during political rallies. But Toloki has modified them, and added to them whines and moans that are meant to invoke sorrow and pain. He sways from side to side, particularly when the Nurse tells us the story of the death of these our brothers and sisters. He knows that Noria is watching keenly from the audience, so he gives a virtuoso performance.

  ‘These our brothers and sisters died in a squabble over a tin of beef,’ the Nurse laments. He explains that the death of these five people happened in a township that had been free from political violence for months. Then one day a man sent his wife to buy a tin of beef at a spaza shop owned by a member of the tribal chief’s party. The spaza shop had run out of canned beef, so the woman bought chicken pieces instead.

  When he got home her husband said he was too hungry to wait for chicken pieces. The couple returned them to the spaza shop, and asked for a refund. The shop owner refused, and an argument ensued. Blows were exchanged. The shop owner eventually took the chicken pieces back, but refused to refund the money.

  The man reported the matter to his street committee, which then tried to resolve the dispute peacefully. But the shop owner was defiant, and threatened to invite the tribal chief’s followers from the hostels to protect him from the street committee. The residents of the township then decided to boycott his spaza shop, and patronised other shops in the area. With his livelihood threatened, the shop owner called on the hostel dwellers to wipe out his perceived enemies in the neighbourhood. Tension mounted, and this culminated in the hostel dwellers and other supporters of the tribal chief rampaging through the township, killing student leaders, and burning down several houses belonging to community leaders.

  ‘Since Tuesday last week five people have been killed,’ said the Nurse. ‘These five brothers and sisters we are laying to rest today. Many others are in hospital with serious injuries.’ In the meantime, the shop owner had disappeared, and his spaza shop was now a gutted shell.

  After the funeral, people come and thank Toloki, and give him some coins. One old woman says, ‘I particularly invited you because I saw you at another funeral. You added an aura of sorrow and dignity that we last saw in the olden days when people knew how to mourn their dead.’ Then she gives him some bank notes. Toloki puts them in his pocket without counting them. He never counts what he receives from individual funerals. However, he is still bent though on devising a fixed rate of fees for different levels of mourning, once people are used to the concept of Professional Mourner.

  Noria and Toloki walk quietly back to her shack. She does not seem to know what to make of what she has just seen. Toloki was hoping for immediate praise, or at least some positive comments from her. But it seems that she chooses to reserve her opinion, almost as though she is disturbed. Oh, how eager he is to hear at least one word of approval from this powerful woman who killed his father. As they make their way back to the settlement, Toloki remembers how his father died. He had to hear it all from Nefolovhodwe, for Jwara’s death began while Toloki was already on the road to the city, and was completed many years after he had reached the city.

  When Noria got married to Napu and moved to town, she stopped singing for Jwara altogether. He sat in his workshop for days on end, without ever venturing out. Policemen brought horses to be shoed, but Jwara told them to go away. He was mourning the death of his creativity. He just sat in his workshop, and refused even to eat. We went to take a look at him, and found him sitting wide-eyed, staring at his figurines. We brought him food and fruit, but these remained untouched.

  His wife gave up on him, and got a job doing washing for the manager of the general dealer’s store. She had to earn a living, since no money was coming into the house from the smithy. After a while she no longer bothered going to the workshop, but decided to get on with her life.

  We, however, continued to take him food and fruit, which kept on piling up all around him. While the food decayed, and there were worms all over the place, and a stench, he stayed intact for months on end, just staring at the figurines, and pining away. Not even once did he go out in all that time.

  We finally got tired of taking the offerings to the workshop, and went about our business. But all the time we knew that Jwara was in there, lost in a trance. The workshop remained closed for many years. Sometimes we warned children, when we saw them playing outside the workshop, ‘Hey you children, go and make your noise elsewhere! Don’t you know that you are disturbing Jwara in his meditations?’

  One day, some men who wanted to open a blacksmith business came to Toloki’s mother, and offered to buy Jwara’s old equipment. Toloki’s mother needed the money, and didn’t see the point of keeping blacksmithing equipment when it was clear to everyone that Jwara would never work as a blacksmith again. Accompanied by the men, and by other curious neighbours, she went to the workshop and opened the door. For the first time in years, light invaded the privacy of the workshop. And there was Jwara, sitting as they remembered him, but with his biltong-like flesh stuck to his bones. His bulging eyes were staring at the figurines as before. Glimmering gossamer was spun all around him, connecting his gaunt body with the walls and the roof. In front of him was a piece of paper on which he had written in a semi-literate scrawl, bequeathing his figurines to Toloki. We never knew before this that Jwara could write. In fact, we were sure that he could not write. He used to sign his papers with a cross, after Toloki or Noria had read them to him. But there it was, in his own handwriting, his last will and testament.

  When Jwara was buried, no one wanted to be the Nurse. Everyone who was asked said, ‘We cannot call upon ourselves the wrath of the ancestors by being witness to things we do not know. We do not know how Jwara died.’

  Toloki mixes flour and sugar that he has bought from Shadrack’s spaza shop, with water. He makes a paste to use for plastering the pictures from the magazines and catalogues onto the walls. The four walls are divided into different sections. On some sections, he plasters pictures of ideal kitchens. There are also pictures of lounges, of dining rooms, and of bedrooms. Then on two walls, he plasters pictures of ideal gardens and houses and swimming pools, all from the Home and Garden magazines. By the time he has finished, every inch of the walls is covered with bright pictures – a wallpaper of sheer luxury.

  Then Toloki takes Noria’s hand, and strolls with her through the grandeur. First they go to the bedroom, and she runs and throws herself on the comfortable king-size bed. Toloki hesitates, but she says, ‘C’mon, Toloki. Don’t be afraid. Come and sit next to me.’ He sits, and the soft bedding seems to swallow them. Toloki kicks his legs up, and jumps up and down on the bed, like an excited child. Noria kneels on the bed, and also jumps up and down. They laugh like two mischievous children, and fight with the continental pillows. They play this game until they are exhausted. Then Noria sits on a stool and admires herself in the big dressing-table mirror. She makes up her face. There is a built-in radio on the head-board, and Toloki fiddles with the switch in order to get a station that plays beautiful music.

  They move from the bedroom to explore the kitchen. There is a beautiful peach-coloured ‘kitchen scheme’, with cupboards that are fully-stocked with the ingredients for making cakes of all types, and a big fridge full of cold drinks. Some cakes are baking in the oven of the electric stove.

  ‘You don’t think the cakes in the oven are ready, Toloki?’

  ‘They are not ready, Noria. Don’t worry, a timer will call us when they are. Let’s just relax and admire our beautiful home.’

  They go to the lounge an
d stretch out on the black leather sofas. They play some more music on the stereo set, which is known as a ‘music centre’. When they grow tired of the music, they laugh at idiotic American situation comedies on their wide-screen television set.

  ‘You know, I am an outdoors type. Let’s take a walk in our garden, Noria.’

  ‘Yes, Toloki, let’s go and admire our beautiful garden. You have put so much work into making it the best garden in all the land.’

  They walk out of their Mediterranean-style mansion through an arbour that is painted crisp white. This is the lovely entrance that graces their private garden. Four tall pillars hoist an overhead trellis laced with Belle of Portugal roses. A bed of delphiniums, snapdragons, cosmos, and hollyhocks rolls to the foot of the arbour. Noria and Toloki take a brief rest in the wooded gazebo, blanketed by foliage and featuring a swing. Noria likes to sit on the swing, and Toloki enjoys pushing it for her.

  The whole garden is a potpourri of colour, designed by expert landscape architects. Petals and scents drift above the pathways that twist and wind up the slope. The paving is made from flagstones, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, and curving around a bright bank of salvia, azaleas, petunias and nicotiana. There are also varieties of grasses that create a natural palette of textures, rhythm, and soft colours. There are slashing brooks and waterfalls that cascade to a collecting pool. Pools and ponds are a haven for wildlife and water plants. Besides giving the place a rugged, semi-wild look, the variety of bushes and shrubs create hiding places for Noria and Toloki when they play hide-and-seek.

  It is getting late, so they must return to the house. They choose a different path made from bark and tree-trunk sections that boldly blazes the way through the flower-clustered backyard, right up to a deck of lumber with ivy and honeysuckle climbing to the rafters. The deck has an above-ground pool, and a bar. Noria and Toloki relax on the casual furniture on the deck and view the splashy fountains and frothing falls of their wonderland. When night falls, the landscape comes to shimmering life with fireflies and moonbeams – courtesy of a combination of entrance, well, tier, globe and mushroom lights. The deck glistens with spotlights and floodlights.

  Back inside the house, they proceed to the dining room. Toloki covers the large oak table with a lace tablecloth. He goes to the kitchen and gets the cakes from the oven. The oven automatically switched itself off when the cakes were ready, and while Toloki and Noria were frolicking in the garden. Using some of the silverware and china that is kept in the dining-room sideboard, Toloki serves Noria with a variety of cakes. For himself, he serves only Swiss roll and green onions. They eat quietly for some time.

  ‘It is a strange combination you are eating, is it not, Toloki?’

  ‘It is what I eat when I really want to spoil myself. It is not the kind of food that I can afford every day.’

  ‘But onions and cakes!’

  ‘It is because I am austere, like the monks from faraway mountain monasteries.’

  ‘Do they eat like that?’

  ‘I really don’t know what they eat, except for those who have faecal feeding habits – the aghori sadhu, for instance. But I had to invent a diet of my own that would mark me as an austere and ascetic votary of my own order of Professional Mourners.’

  Noria does not understand what this means. But she lets it pass. She is enjoying the cakes, although in her view, which she keeps to herself, buying cakes is a waste of money. Toloki should have bought something more practical – like mealie-meal, sugar, tea, dripping, or paraffin.

  After the meal, Noria clears the catalogue pages that Toloki had spread on the mud floor. They will come in handy again when she eats. Or when she sits on the floor, since her shack is devoid even of a single stool. Toloki stands up from the floor where they have both been sitting, and prepares to go. Out of the blue, Noria makes a suggestion that leaves his heart thumping at an alarmingly fast pace.

  ‘Perhaps my ears are deceiving me, Noria.’

  ‘I am quite serious about it, Toloki. We can live together here as homeboy and homegirl.’

  ‘It sounds like a wonderful idea. But I am afraid. What will people say?’

  ‘What will they say about what? We come from the same world, Toloki. Our story is the same. You are my homeboy. No one else has any business in our affair.’

  ‘I will think about it, Noria.’

  ‘Think seriously about it, Toloki. We must be together because we can teach each other how to live. I like you because you know how to live. I can teach you other ways of living. Today you taught me how to walk in the garden. I want to walk in that garden with you every day.’

  ‘Yes! The garden! There is much more to it than we explored today. Many corners that we have not seen yet. I love walking in the garden with you, Noria. We shall walk in the garden every day.’

  ‘So you’ll come and live here?’

  ‘I cannot live with anyone but myself. That’s why I decided to live alone in waiting rooms. That’s why I decided not to have anything to do with homeboys and homegirls. I am a monk, Noria. A man with a vocation. I mourn for the dead. I cannot stop mourning, Noria. Death continues every day. Death becomes me, it is a part of me. How will they know where to find me? How will my clients find me, Noria? I cannot live without death, Noria.’

  ‘I cannot stop you from mourning, Toloki. It is your calling in life. And your clients will find you. It will be like relocating your business. In fact, all the deaths you mourn happen here in the settlements and in the townships, not in the docklands where you live. You will be coming home to where death is.’

  His head is spinning. Does she know what she is saying, this Noria? This beautiful Noria with the soles of her feet all cracked. This intoxicating Noria, surrounded by live and dead flowers. Suddenly it somehow doesn’t seem that important whether his clients find him or not. Is he doomed to be the first, and the last, Professional Mourner?

  6

  Toloki has nightmares that night. He is visited by strange creatures that look very much like the figurines that his father used to create. But these are made of glass. They make a terrible din, shouting his name and dancing around, all in step. Noria, also made of crystal clear and sparkling glass, appears among the creatures. She gives one sharp whistle, and the dancing and din stop abruptly. The creatures gather around her, and she feeds them glass hay. Molten glass drips from her fingers, and some of the creatures lap it. Toloki sees himself, made embarrassingly of flesh and blood, looking longingly at the scene. He wants to join Noria and her creatures. He walks towards them. But Noria rides on a glass horse that suddenly grows glass wings. It flies away with her. ‘Please, Noria!’ he screams, ‘Don’t leave me! Wait for me, Noria! Noria!’ He wakes up in a sweat.

  A drunk sitting on a bench a short distance away from his laughs at him. Fumes of plonk fill the waiting room.

  ‘Who is she, ou toppie, the woman you have wet dreams about?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Then stop disturbing our sleep with her name.’

  He takes a long swig from a bottle wrapped in brown paper, and drifts into a noisy snooze. His toothless mouth moves all the time, like a cow chewing the cud. He passes wind thunderously, which suddenly wakes him up. He thinks this is tremendously funny, so he cackles shamelessly. The stench of rotten cabbage drifts from the drunk, and hovers above Toloki. This is one of the disadvantages of his headquarters. They are a public waiting room, and sometimes, especially on weekends, they are full of inconsiderate and drunken hoboes.

  ‘I can’t stand this.’

  ‘Stand what?’

  ‘You farting all over the place. You are not alone here, you know.’

  ‘You get off my case, ou toppie. It’s not my fault that you have wet dreams about watchamacallit Noria.’

  He laughs again. And unleashes more thunder. Toloki feels that he doesn’t have to endure this. The fact that he has taken it in his stride for all the years he has lived in waiting rooms seems to escape his mind. Nor
does he question why all of a sudden he can no longer tolerate it, when it has been part of his life for so long. He gets up, and pulls on his shoes. He had slept fully-dressed in what he calls his street or home clothes. He repacks all his things neatly in his supermarket trolley, and pushes it out of the waiting room. The drunk laughs and shouts after him in the mocking sing-song voice that children use when they tease each other, ‘I want Noria! Give me Noria! Nye-nye, nye-nye-nye!’

  Toloki walks along the highway, pushing his shopping cart. It is the middle of the night, and there are not many cars on the road. He walks unhurriedly, sometimes stopping to look at the stars. And to look back at the harbour. He is going to miss the throbbing life, the nightwatchmen, the dockworkers, the sailors and their prostitutes, even the inane grins of tourists from the inland provinces. He is making a major change in his life, and it is not clear in his mind why he is doing it.

  He reaches the settlement at the crack of dawn, and stops at a bus shelter. What will Noria say when he arrives at this time of the morning? Will she not be angry with him if he wakes her up at this ungodly hour? What if she is with someone?

  These unanswered questions are interrupted by a group of young men who approach him. They are the Young Tigers who patrol the streets at night, like a neighbourhood watch, protecting the people from the attacks of the migrants from the hostels, and from the police and the army. They want to know what he is doing there. He tells them that he has come to visit a friend. He has walked for many hours, all the way from the docklands, and is merely taking a rest at the bus shelter. He is shaking with fear, for he has heard what these boys, and sometimes girls, are capable of. If only he was wearing his venerable costume. They would surely show some respect for it. They look him over, and decide that he is quite harmless. ‘He’s just an old bum pushing his trolley,’ they declare.

  He immediately hastens away from their patrol zone, and goes straight to Noria’s shack. He knocks, and she opens the door.