Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

  Of course the guard was lying, thought Toloki. Nefolovhodwe was not an imbecile with a short memory.

  He was led by another guard across the spreading lawns, past a dozen or so German, British and American luxury cars, to the back of the double-storey mansion. They entered through the kitchen door, and Toloki was searched by another guard, before he was led through numerous passages to a big room that was expensively furnished. Nefolovhodwe, who had ballooned to ten times the size he used to be back in the village, was sitting behind a huge desk, playing with fleas. Toloki later learnt that he ran a flea circus for his relaxation. He took it very seriously, and his fleas were very good at all sorts of tricks. He believed that they would one day be skilled enough to enter an international competition.

  Nefolovhodwe did not even look up as Toloki entered, but continued playing with his fleas.

  ‘And who are you, young man?’

  ‘I am Toloki.’

  ‘Toloki? Who is Toloki?’

  ‘Toloki, sir. The son of your friend, Jwara.’

  ‘Well, I don’t remember any Toloki. What do you want here?’

  ‘I am looking for employment, sir. I thought that since you are my homeboy, and a friend of my father’s, you might be able to help.’

  Nefolovhodwe looked at him for the first time.

  ‘You come and disturb my peace here at home when I am relaxing with my fleas just because you want employment? Don’t you know where my office is in the city? Do you think I have time to deal with mundane matters such as people seeking employment? What do you think I employ personnel managers for?’

  Toloki knew immediately that wealth had had the very strange effect of erasing from Nefolovhodwe’s once sharp mind everything he used to know about his old friends back in the village. He wanted to turn his back, and leave the disgusting man with his fleas. But the pangs of hunger got the better of him, and he made up his mind that he was not going to leave that house without a job. He knelt on the floor and, with tears streaming from his eyes, pleaded with the powerful man to come to his rescue.

  ‘I lost my business, sir. I need a job. You are the only one who can help me. Even if you don’t remember me, sir, or my father, please find it in your good heart to help one miserable soul who will die without your help.’

  ‘One miserable soul! Every time I am asked to help one miserable soul. Do you know how many miserable souls are in this city? Millions! Do you think it is Nefolovhodwe’s job to feed all of them? Go to the kitchen, and tell them that I say they must give you food. Then go away from here. I do need my peace, you know.’

  ‘It is not food I want, sir. I want a job. So that I can feed myself, and send some money to my mother. I do not want to beg, sir, or to get something for nothing. I want to work, sir, so that I can be a great man like you.’

  Nefolovhodwe loved to hear that he was a great man. Although it was ridiculous to imagine that Toloki would one day be like him, he liked the part about his own greatness. Unknowingly, Toloki had pressed the right button, and he was offered a job.

  ‘But what you’ll earn depends entirely on you. I’m employing you on a commission basis. I want you to do guard duty in the cemeteries at night.’

  ‘Guard cemeteries, sir? Who would want to steal from cemeteries?’

  ‘You are to go to cemeteries only after funerals where a Nefolovhodwe has been used. Your task will be to hide, and wait there until someone comes to dig the coffin up. I want to catch all those undertakers who are making illicit profits from my sweat. You must admit it’s an ingenious profit-making scheme, this digging up of my coffins. I should have thought of it first. If anyone is going to profit from a Nefolovhodwe, it should be Nefolovhodwe himself, don’t you think so, young man?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Toloki was happy that he had found a job at last. He was asked to report directly to Nefolovhodwe, and not to personnel managers in his offices in the city. He was employed directly by the great man, and was going to be paid from his own pocket, rather than from the funds of his company. This meant that he was Nefolovhodwe’s personal employee. He was going to impress this big shot. He was going to catch as many thieves as possible, and earn a lot of commission in return. He pictured himself recovering from his financial difficulties, and recapturing his old life-style. But of course this time he was going to be more careful about the friends he chose. No more of the kind that loved you only when you had money. Homeboys and homegirls were the worst of the lot in this respect.

  However, things were not as easy as Toloki first thought they would be. To begin with, he did not know how to find funerals where a Nefolovhodwe had been used. He went to cemeteries during the day to attend funerals, and to spy on the type of coffin used. In most cases, he found that people were using the Collapsible. The Collapsible was too cheap for anyone to dig up. He went back to report to the great man that in all the cemeteries he had visited, no one was using a Nefolovhodwe. It did not dawn on him that the sort of people who would use a Nefolovhodwe De Luxe Special would not be buried in the popular cemeteries he frequented.

  ‘Stupid boy! You will never find a Nefolovhodwe in cemeteries in shanty towns and townships where the rabble are buried. Go to private cemeteries, ugly boy, and to church yards, foolish boy. That is where you will find a Nefolovhodwe. In the suburbs, ugly boy, in the high-class suburbs.’

  Toloki was beginning to hate this new Nefolovhodwe. In many ways he reminded him of his father, Jwara.

  He went to graveyards in the churches and to private cemeteries to do more spying. But they drove him away, and called him a tramp. So he stood outside the graveyard, and hoped that the coffin that was being used was a Nefolovhodwe. At night he went back and hid himself behind the trees. Months passed without his catching a single undertaker. Once a week or so he went to report back to the great man. The guard at the gate would open up for him without further ado, saying ‘Come in, homeboy. Your homeboy must be expecting you.’ At first Toloki thought that the guard was a homeboy. But later he realised that he was merely mocking him.

  Sometimes instead of Nefolovhodwe, Toloki would find the woman who was called his wife. Toloki knew Nefolovhodwe’s wife in the village, and his nine children. He had fought battles in their defence. And in defence of the honour of their now ungrateful father and husband. He refused to accept that this tall, thin girl, with straightened hair, red lips and purple eyelids, and a face that looked like that of the leupa lizard, was Nefolovhodwe’s wife. She was kindhearted though, poor thing, and gave Toloki some food every time he came to report on his lack of progress in the investigations. Toloki promised himself that one day he was going to refund every cent’s worth of food he had eaten at the despicable man’s house.

  His luck turned one night. He was waiting among marble tombstones in some posh graveyard as usual. Four men came in a van, and parked just outside the gate of the graveyard. They went to a fresh grave, and began to dig with their spades and shovels. Toloki suddenly realised that in all the briefings that he had received from the great man, there was absolutely nothing on what he should do if he caught undertakers digging the graves. He decided to confront the grave-robbers. He leapt out from his hiding place, shouting.

  ‘At last I have got you, you dirty thieves!’

  ‘What the hell is this? Who are you?’

  ‘I have been looking for you for many months. I am taking you to Nefolovhodwe. You have been stealing his coffins!’

  ‘Do you see any coffin that we have stolen here?’

  ‘Ha! You think I am a fool. You were going to steal it.’

  One man hit him hard on the head with a shovel. He fell to the ground, and spades rained down on him. The men left him for dead.

  Toloki lay unconscious throughout the whole night. In the morning, he woke up with a gash on his head. His clothes were all bloody. He stood up and staggered to the grave. It was intact. He was not sure whether the thieves had continued with their digging. He went to the suburb to report to his master.
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  ‘You ugly boy, I ask you to bring me thieves, and you come with a foolish story instead. You are fired!’

  Toloki had wasted months working for this man, with nothing to show for it. He was a very bitter young man. He went back to his shack and locked himself inside while he thought very hard about what to do next. Such thinking sessions usually paid off. When he had come up with the idea of selling boerewors from a trolley, it had been after he had spent days in the shack, his mind incubating new ideas. Even when he had come up with the idea of seeking Nefolovhodwe’s help, it was after the same process. Well, Nefolovhodwe was a loss. But how was Toloki to know that homeboys who did well in the city developed amnesia?

  Toloki observed that Nefolovhodwe had attained all his wealth through death. Death was therefore profitable. He made up his mind that he too was going to benefit from death. But unfortunately, he had no practical skill to market. Unlike Nefolovhodwe, he had no material items that he could make and sell that concerned death. But he had the saddest eyes that we had ever seen. His sad eyes were quite famous, even back in the village. We used to sing about Toloki’s sorrowful eyes. Slowly he reached the decision that he was going to mourn and that people would pay him for this service. Even the fat Nefolovhodwe had told him, ‘Your face is a constant reminder that we are all going to die one day.’ He was going to make his face pay. After all, it was the only gift that God had given him. He was going to profit from the perpetual sadness that inhabited his eyes. The concept of a Professional Mourner was born.

  The experience that he gained while working for Nefolovhodwe and looking for corrupt undertakers came in handy. He knew where and when funerals were held. He boldly approached the bereaved and told them that he was Toloki the Professional Mourner. His costume, which in those days was still new, gave him the necessary aura. He suggested that he mourn for their departed relatives for a small fee of their choice. Some people thought he was a madman or a joker. They drove him away. Others gave him some money just to get rid of him, but he mourned at their rituals all the same. He had not yet sharpened his mourning skills at that early stage. He just stood there and looked sad. It was only later that he developed certain sounds that he deemed harrowing enough to enhance the sadness and pain of the occasion.

  Soon enough he learnt that it was only at poor people’s funerals that he was welcome. Rich people did not want to see him at all, so he did not bother going to their funerals. When he approached poor folks, they would give him some coins, and tell him to come and mourn with them. Some, especially those who were new arrivals in the city, were puzzled. They thought that perhaps they had missed something that they ought to have been doing. Maybe it was one of the modern practices of the city to have a Professional Mourner. It was the civilised thing to do, they thought. So they engaged his services. Some believed that the presence of a Professional Mourner brought luck to their funerals. Yet there were also those who continued to see him as a nuisance.

  At first, Toloki engaged in this unique profession solely for its material rewards, to profit from death like his homeboy Nefolovhodwe. But after two or three funerals, his whole outlook changed. To mourn for the dead became a spiritual vocation. As we have already seen, sometimes he saw himself in the light of monks from the Orient, and aimed to be pure like them. It was this purity that he hoped to bring to the funerals, and to share with his esteemed clients.

  Noria returns at midday. She is carrying scraps of pap in a brown paper bag. She shares the food with Toloki, and tells him that this is how she has been surviving for the past few years. She helps people in the settlement with their chores. For instance, she draws water for shebeen queens. They give her food in return. Most times she helps Madimbhaza, because she has so many children, and cannot cope on her own.

  ‘I have lived like this since I came to the city.’

  ‘I didn’t know, Noria. I could have helped.’

  ‘You forget that I do not take things from men.’

  ‘As a homeboy, Noria. As a brother. Not as a man.’

  Noria patiently explains to him that she is not complaining about her life. She has received fulfilment from helping others. And not for one single day has she slept on an empty stomach.

  Before she arrived in the city, she thought that she was going to lead a cosy life. People in the village, and in the small town where she lived in a brickmaking yard, had painted a glowing picture of life in the city. She believed that it would be possible to immerse herself in the city’s glamour and allurement, and would therefore be able to forget the pain that was gnawing her as a result of losing her son. She did not want to forget the missing son, only the pain. She believed very strongly that one day Vutha would come back to her. She was going to get a job, maybe cleaning offices, or as a domestic, and build a new life. If things didn’t work out, she could always fall back on her old profession of entertaining men. But on second thoughts, for Vutha’s sake, she would not go back to this profession. In any case, there wouldn’t be any need – the streets of the city were paved with gold and diamonds, after all.

  She had a rude awakening when she arrived. There were no diamonds in the streets, nor was there gold. Only mud and open sewers. It was not like anything she had seen in her life, nor anything she had imagined. However, there was no going back. She had nothing to return to in the village.

  Homegirls welcomed her. Some were doing well, working as domestics in the suburbs. Others brewed and sold beer – a practice that was illegal. But then their whole lives in the shanty towns were illegal. Word spread around that Noria had arrived in the city. She stayed with an old woman who took her under her wing because That Mountain Woman had cured her of bad spirits that had deprived her of sleep. She was still grateful, and wanted to be of assistance to the daughter of her old doctor. In return she hoped that That Mountain Woman, who was now among the revered ancestors, would look at her kindly and bless her aging life with good fortune.

  Homeboys and homegirls came to the old woman’s shebeen to see Noria. They cracked jokes and made funny faces, hoping that Noria would laugh and fill their miserable lives with joy. But Noria could not laugh. She tried very hard to live up to their expectations, and to make her homeboys and homegirls happy, as she had willingly done so many times back in the village, but her laughter would not come. She could only manage a strained grin; which, according to those who saw it, looked like that of someone who was constipated. It was as though the well from which the pleasant laughter flowed had run dry. Soon, everyone decided to give up, and went about with their day-to-day business.

  Noria learnt the skills of brewing from the old woman. Even though her mother had been an expert brewer, Noria had never been taught the art at home. Her mother had never made her work. She, according to Xesibe, treated her daughter like an egg that would break. But in the city she worked hard. Some people from the village said that the old woman worked her like a slave. Right up until the time that she set up her own shack after the death of the old lady, she was not paid a penny, but was given food and a place to sleep instead.

  Most of the people who came to drink at the old woman’s shebeen were from the village. From them Noria learnt that Napu had come to the city with Vutha. As soon as her hopes were raised that at last she was going to see her son again, they looked at her with eyes that were full of pity. ‘Don’t you know, poor child, of the things that happened? Your son does not live anymore.’ Immediately these fateful words were uttered, Noria wailed in a voice that pierced the hearts of the drinkers. The old woman was angry with them for revealing the sad news in such a tactless manner. ‘Why do you think I kept quiet about it all the time? It was because I wanted to tell her myself when the time was ripe.’ The drinkers apologised, explaining that they were not aware that Noria was in the dark about her son’s death.

  Noria learnt that Napu came to the city with Vutha. But they stayed away from everyone from the village. The home-boys and homegirls heard that Vutha was crying for his mother every day. Noria, they
gossiped, had deserted her family, leaving the poor man to raise the child alone. Napu had no job, and would spend the whole day begging for money from passers-by in the city. He would sit with Vutha at a street corner, and people would throw coins into a small can that Vutha held. Most people gave money because they pitied the little boy in rags, who was pitch black with the layers and layers of filth that had accumulated on his body. Napu knew that if he went on a begging spree with Vutha, he would get a lot of money.

  However, he did not spend any of this money on Vutha. When he got home – he had established a rough cardboard shelter under a lonely bridge on a disused road outside the city – he chained Vutha to a pole, and went off drinking. He went all the way to those shanty towns where he knew people from his village did not live, and crawled from shebeen to shebeen drinking, until the money was finished. Vutha would cry for Noria and for food. But Napu would only go back to unchain him and take him to the city for more begging. The only time they had anything to eat was when some kindly people would give them scraps of food, instead of money.

  One day Napu had scored a lot of money from begging. As usual, he chained Vutha to the pole under the bridge and went drinking. He was gone for many days, and forgot all about the boy. During all this time he remained in a drunken stupor, and when fellow-drinkers asked where his son was, he said he had forgotten where he had left him. The shebeen queens laughed.

  ‘How can you forget where you have left your child?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t have time for children. His mother will take care of him.’

  ‘Which mother, now? Didn’t you tell us that your wife died in a flood, leaving you to take care of the boy alone?’

  ‘It’s not my business. His mother will take care of him.’

  The shebeen queens laughed again. They knew that the boy didn’t have a mother. But they praised themselves for brewing beer that was so potent that it made Napu delirious about a wife who did not exist.