Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

  When she first arrived in the city she had no intention of giving up her old ways. Instead, she intended to enjoy the city and all its opportunities to its fullest. But a turning point in her life came when she learnt of the death of her son, and of Napu. From that day onwards, she lost all interest in men, and her body had not, to this very day, touched that of a man. The cruelty of the world killed not only her uplifting laughter, but all human desires of the flesh.

  Then one day, seven years ago, she discovered that she was pregnant. The homegirls did not believe her when she told them that she did not know how it had happened, as she had eschewed all contact with men. Although they had not seen her with any man, they believed that she had been seeing someone secretly.

  ‘I do not expect you to believe me either, Toloki. But that is how it happened.’

  ‘I believe you, Noria. I believe you absolutely.’

  And he genuinely believes her. Noria, as Jwara used to say, is a child of the gods.

  She explains that she had not slept with any man, except for the strangers that visited her in her dreams, and made love to her. Some of these dream figures began their existence on top of her as strangers, but by the time they reached their fourth ejaculation, they looked and acted like a youthful Napu. The Napu of the aloes.

  Just as with her first child, Noria was pregnant for fifteen months. When the child was born, he looked exactly like the original Vutha. He even had the same birth marks. Noria decided to name him Vutha, against all the advice of the home-girls and homeboys. They said it was not wise to name a child after one who had died such a painful death. Meanings of names tended to fulfil themselves, they added. But Noria was adamant that her child would be called Vutha. So, homeboys and homegirls called him Vutha The Second, or just The Second, so as not to confuse him with his dead brother. But to Noria, he was the original Vutha who had come back to his mother.

  During the few years that Vutha The Second lived with his mother, her life was blissful. She struggled to survive as before, but she wanted for nothing. When he died, he was five years old, going on for six. He had not started school yet. Noria had once taken him to the school made of shipping containers, which in fact was the only school in the settlement. But they refused to enrol him as a pupil. They said they only accepted children from the age of seven onwards. Perhaps if they had taken him at this school, he would still be alive today.

  Noria’s eyes are glassy with unshed tears.

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about this, Noria. I am sorry I brought it up.’

  ‘It is painful to remember. But we cannot pretend it did not happen.’

  Toloki is longing to hear how The Second saw his death. But he will not add to Noria’s sorrow by pressing the matter.

  ‘Tomorrow I must find a funeral. My body needs to mourn.’

  ‘I would like to go with you. Please let me go with you.’

  ‘Was it not unsettling for you when you went with me yesterday? I did not hear you say anything about it.’

  ‘I have not yet come to grips with it, Toloki. Please give me time to come to grips with it.’

  ‘You know you don’t have to go. I go because I cannot live without it. Not only for the money. But it is something that is in my blood. I am an addict, Noria!’

  ‘I do want to go, Toloki. I want to participate in your world.’

  Toloki is beside himself with joy when he hears this. Perhaps Noria will end up being a Professional Mourner as well. She would make an excellent Professional Mourner. And a beautiful one, too. Indeed, this would advance his long-cherished goal, that of being the founder of a noble profession.

  They are both quiet for some time, lost in their thoughts. Toloki dreads the time that seems to be approaching with undignified speed, the time for sleeping. Noria crawls to the corner and gets more scraps of pap. She puts them on a piece of paper in front of Toloki, and they both eat in silence. Toloki enjoys the food, especially the slightly burnt parts that occupied the bottom of the pot when the flames licked it. It is quite a change from his cakes and green onions, or from the tinned beans which he ate when the going was not too good. Then out of the blue, Noria is distressed.

  ‘Toloki, I am sorry about the way they treated you back in the village . . . about the way we treated you.’

  ‘It happened a long time ago, Noria. I never think about it at all.’

  ‘You are a beautiful person, Toloki. That is why I want you to teach me how to live. And how to forgive.’

  ‘You are the one who will teach me, Noria.’

  He says this with utmost humility and modesty. His thoughts are caught by the label that Noria has given him. He has been called ugly and foolish all his life, to the extent that he has become used to these labels. But he has never been called beautiful before. It will take him time to get used to this new label. Maybe all the catastrophes that have happened in her life have affected her eyes, so that she is able to see beauty where there is none.

  ‘Perhaps we should prepare to sleep now. If you want to pee at night, use the basin.’

  ‘I’ll go outside, Noria.’

  ‘It can be dangerous outside. It is not like the docklands here.’

  She says things so innocently, this Noria, as if it is the natural thing for a man to pee in a basin. Anyway, he knows how to hold his bladder until the next day. In the morning he will go to a public pit latrine that the residents have constructed a few hundred yards from Noria’s shack.

  Noria spreads her donkey blankets on the floor. Toloki spreads his on the other end of the small shack. Only a small strip of mud floor divides their separate kingdoms. She takes off her polka dot dress, and retains only her petticoat. Toloki is afraid to look at her, but a glimpse in her direction tells him that the petticoat has seen better days, and like his venerable costume, it is held together by pieces of wire and safety pins. She gets between her two donkey blankets.

  ‘You can undress too, Toloki, and sleep. We have a very busy day tomorrow. After the funeral, I want to take you to a few places in the settlement where we do some work.’

  ‘I always sleep with my clothes on.’

  Noria laughs. It is the innocent laughter of a child. It sounds like a distant reverberation of the laughter we used to feast on when she was a little girl. Toloki cannot explain the ecstasy that suddenly overwhelms him.

  ‘You remind me of my father. He used to sleep with his gum-boots on.’

  ‘I do take my shoes off, though, when I sleep.’

  Soon Noria’s breathing becomes steady and slow. Toloki shyly steals a glance at her. She sleeps in a foetal position, like all the true sons and daughters of her village. In spite of the fact that she has been in the city for so many years, she has not taken to the grotesque sleeping positions of city people. This discovery fills Toloki with admiration. And with pride. There is nothing that he wants more in the world than to wake her up, and hold her in his arms, and tell her how much he admires her, and assure her that everything will be alright. But of course he cannot do such a thing. He can’t look at her sleeping posture for too long either. That would be tantamount to raping her. It would be like doing dirty things to a goddess.

  8

  The Nurse is a toothless old man who has seen many winters. He holds a fly-whisk made of the tail of a horse, and as he talks he uses it to whisk invisible flies from one side to another. He sways to the rhythm of his speech, working himself into an almost dance-like frenzy that leaves us panting with excitement.

  ‘He was my age-mate, this our brother who will not see the new year,’ he laments in a pained voice. ‘We grew up together in a faraway village in the inland provinces. When we were little boys we looked after calves together, and when they escaped to suckle from their mothers, our buttocks received the biting pain of the whip together. When we were older we graduated together from calves to cattle, and we spent months in cattle posts in the snowy mountains. We went to the mountain school together, where we were circumcised into manhood. We went t
o the mines together, and dug the white man’s gold that has made this land rich. Then we came to this city to work in its harbours. When we were too old to make them rich any more, we were thrown out of employment together. I tell you, my brothers and sisters, we travelled a long road with this our brother. Ours was the closeness of saliva to the tongue. And now here he lies, waiting to be laid to rest under the soil. And it is the hands of his own children that have put him in this irreversible state.’

  Toloki sits on the mound. Today he floors us with a modern mourning sound that he has recently developed. He sounds like a goat that is being slaughtered.

  Noria is somewhere in the crowd. She insisted on coming. They had woken up quite late, and were almost tardy for the funeral. Toloki is usually a very early riser. This morning, his eyes had opened at dawn. But he gave his back to Noria and pretended to be fast asleep. He did not know what to do once he woke up. He couldn’t just sit there and ogle at Noria in her sleep. But most of all, he was ashamed of a dirty dream that had visited him in the night, leaving his perforated green underpants all wet. It was a dream about Noria. The Noria of the aloes.

  After Noria had woken up, and put on her polka-dot dress, he was able to wake up too. She poured some water into a basin, took a blanket with which to cover her nakedness, and went behind the shack to wash herself. After she had finished, she came back and poured some water for him. She told him to wash himself outside. ‘Wash yourself thoroughly. And don’t forget to wash behind your ears,’ she added. He covered himself with his blanket, pulled his pants down to his ankles, and washed his shame away. He thought of the seedy tramp who had mocked him about wet dreams in the waiting room the night before.

  As he washed himself, people were passing on all sides of the shack: domestic workers rushing to catch taxis that would take them to the kitchens of their madams in the suburbs, factory workers going to the industrial areas, and pickpockets and muggers going to ply their trade in the central business district. Some of those passing by commented that it was nice that Noria had at last found herself a man. The cynics responded that for sure she had always been hiding men in her shack; no woman could survive like a nun as she pretended to do. A fat washerwoman shouted to Noria, and she responded from within the shack.

  ‘Hey wena Noria, don’t forget that this afternoon we have a meeting.’

  ‘What would make me forget, ’Malehlohonolo?’

  ‘Who knows? Now that you have a visitor . . .’

  ‘You are a madwoman, ‘Malehlohonolo. Of course I’ll attend the meeting. But you make sure that you come back from your washing early, because you must also be at the meeting.’

  The fat washerwoman gave a naughty giggle, as if to say, ‘Yes, Noria, I know what you were up to last night.’

  Toloki was not at all bothered by the passing crowds. He is used to public ablutions. And the passers-by were not gawking at him. They were going about their business. In any case, in the settlement people generally wash themselves outside their shacks. There isn’t enough room inside for ablutions.

  The dream haunts Toloki as he sits on the mound, listening to the Nurse, and seasoning his oration with goatly laments. It makes something rise in the region of his groin. It is violently kicking inside his pants. Toloki bends forward as if responding to the rhythms of oration and mourning. But what he is really doing is hiding his shame. People must not see that he has disgraced his asceticism by having dirty thoughts running through his mind, and playing havoc with his venerable body.

  The Nurse is now talking of how this our brother saw his death. He was a graceful patriarch who loved his family, and was a custodian of his people’s customs. He was blessed with three sons. As an afterthought the Nurse adds, ‘Or let me rather say, we thought it was a blessing.’ And he waves in a dramatic gesture: ‘But does any one of you see his sons here? No, you cannot see his sons here, my brothers and sisters, and my children. You cannot see his sons here, because none of them are here.’

  He then proceeds to relate, in his histrionic manner, how the dead man’s elder son died.

  ‘Those of you who are regular in the attendance of funerals will remember that slightly more than a week ago, we buried him right here in this graveyard where many of our people sleep.’ Quite a few of us mumble in agreement. We remember very well that the eldest son of the deceased was laid to rest a few days before Christmas.

  Toloki does not remember that particular funeral. It is possible that he was attending other funerals at the time. With death as plentiful as it is these days, it is impossible for him to attend all funerals. All the more reason why there should be more Professional Mourners in the community.

  The Nurse meanwhile continues his sorry tale.

  ‘The son had died a normal death. Perhaps I should say an abnormal death, because he died peacefully of natural illness in his sleep. Normal deaths are those deaths that we have become accustomed to, deaths that happen everyday. They are deaths of the gun, and the knife, and torture and gore. We don’t normally see people who die of illness or of old age.’

  The son was buried with proper dignity. Early the next day, as was the custom, all the relatives of the deceased lined up in order to have their hair cut. The cutting of the hair is a very serious matter among some ethnic groups, the Nurse explains for the benefit of those whose customs may be different, and it is essential that it be done in the proper order. First, all the male children must have their hair cut in the order of seniority. The cutting is done by an elder in the family. After the male children, the grandmothers will have their hair cut, also in order of seniority. They are followed by the female children.

  ‘And remember that when we talk of seniority we are not concerned with the ages of the individual children. We are talking of the seniority of the households, and of the families in relation to one another. And when we talk of children, we are talking of sons and daughters of the homesteads, irrespective of their ages. Some children have long since reached adulthood, and are fathers in their own right, but they are still children when we come to these matters. I am not trying to teach you the custom, my brothers and sisters. I am merely repeating it here because it is my duty as the Nurse to tell you how this our brother saw his death.’

  During the cutting of the hair, a squabble arose. The two younger brothers complained that the children of the deceased were shaved before their children. Under the usual circumstances, it would have been the proper thing to have the children of the deceased shaved before anyone else. After all, it was their father who was dead, and the two brothers were younger than the deceased. Theirs were therefore junior homesteads. But the circumstances of this case were that the deceased had made the children in question with a mistress, and not with a legally married wife. The two younger brothers therefore felt it was a crime that their children should be shaved after the children of a mistress.

  ‘They blamed their father, my friend the patriarch we are burying today, for allowing the scandal to happen. As an elder, and a custodian of the customs, he should not have allowed the children of a mistress to be shaved before their legitimate children. So, they beat him up with sticks. I was called from my shack by the screams of the women. When I arrived there, one of the boys even had a gun, and was surely going to use it on his father. I told him to shoot me as well, if he was going to shoot my friend. I tell you, my brothers and sisters, and my children, I nearly joined my age-mate in death. But it seems that my ancestors were too strong for these evil boys. They stopped beating up their father, and went into the house to carry on with the cutting of the hair according to how they saw fit.’

  The old man ran up and down the whole settlement, trying to find transport to take his friend to hospital. But the cars he saw in the streets all refused to stop for him.

  ‘Shadrack is the person who usually helps us with transport at times like these. But he was away ranking in the city. You know that he does the ranking himself now, as they killed all his drivers. They killed his son too. And this
very day, my brothers and sisters, he is lying in hospital because the upholders of the law tried to finish him. They do not want to see anyone helping his own people. I am told that the day before yesterday he miraculously escaped death. I have not been to see him yet. After this funeral I intend to go to the hospital to visit him. Anyway, I am still telling you how this our brother saw his death.

  ‘I waited outside Shadrack’s spaza shop, until it was late in the evening. He arrived at dusk, coming home only to bring some groceries to be sold at the shop, and to eat, before going back again to rank in the city. He is a hard worker, that Shadrack. He has no time to rest. That is why he is successful. This is a lesson to you young pipsqueaks who think that things will just fall into your laps like manna from heaven. I told Shadrack about my friend, and after advising me that a car does not move by water but by petrol, I gave him some money to pour petrol into his car. It was fortunate, my brothers and sisters, that I had some money in my shoe where I hide it from my grandchildren. Oops, now they know where I hide my money. But don’t worry, I’ll find another place. All my pension money went into petrol, my dear brothers and sisters, in order to save the life of my dear friend.

  ‘I am sure that when we took my friend from his house, he was still breathing. But by the time we arrived at the hospital, he was dead. There was nothing that the doctors could do. So we took him to the mortuary instead.’

  We are very angry at the needless death of the patriarch, and we condemn his sons for this abomination. Those who come from his ethnic group say that although they don’t condone the action of the sons, it was wrong for the deceased to allow the children of the mistress to shave ahead of the proper children. The custom of shaving is crucial, and must be strictly observed. It is almost as important as the custom of filling the grave with soil after the coffin has been lowered into it and all the prayers and orations have been made. The first people to be given the spade to throw soil into the grave are the male relatives. And these must throw the soil in order of their seniority, as with the cutting of hair. Only then can the general public be allowed to fill the grave with soil, and to shape the mound where flowers and wreaths will be laid. Squabbles have often arisen when the names of the male relatives have been called in the incorrect order. But it is unheard of for an elder to be killed by his own children for failing to properly observe the custom. We all agree that the two sons, who are now in prison awaiting trial, deserve to be in jail for the rest of their lives, or to be hanged.