Ways of Dying

by Zakes Mda

  This sad tale confirms what Toloki has long observed. Funerals acquire a life of their own, and give birth to other funerals. The old man’s funeral has come about as a direct result of his son’s funeral. This was also the case back in the village many years ago, when the choir girl was shot dead at a school-mate’s funeral. Indeed, every day we hear of car accidents in which people on their way to or from the funerals of friends or relatives are killed.

  After the funeral we solemnly march to the home of the deceased. There we wash our hands in water that has been mixed with the juice of aloes. After this, we wait for the food.

  As usual, samp and beef is served in three large basins – almost the size of small bathtubs. One is for the men, the second one for the women, and the third for children. We dip our hands into the samp and, with gravy dripping down our forearms to the elbows, we stuff the food into our mouths.

  Toloki is impressed by the care taken with the food. The meat is so soft that even old grandmothers and grandfathers can chew it with their gums. It is well salted, but it is not spiced. Funeral meat is never spiced. It is just boiled in water and seasoned with salt. The samp also is soft and tender. Often the samp at funerals is hard and undercooked.

  He looks around, and sees Noria enjoying her food at the basin that is reserved for women. Poor Noria, she only gets to eat meat when there is a funeral. Toloki, on the other hand, does not usually eat at funerals. At first, it was not his choice not to eat. However, when he used to join the men’s basin they would make snide remarks about him, and about his odour. Blunt ones would even tell him rudely that he was not welcome at their dish. He could have refused to move, and continued to eat. After all, the food was meant for everyone who was at the funeral, and the louts did not have any special rights over it. But he decided not to lower the dignity of his profession by engaging in quarrels about food. People have been known to fight and injure one another over food at funerals.

  At some funerals, especially in the townships where there are better-off people, the system of dispensing food is different. The most important people – usually the relatives and close friends of the family, and those who are pillars of the community – are served food inside the house at the table. The food that is served there will include not only the usual funeral fare of samp and beef, but rice, and some salads, and jelly and custard. The second stratum is made up of those people who are fairly important, but not well-known enough to sit inside at the table. They form a line outside, and women at a table dish samp, beef, and sometimes cabbage onto their individual paper or plastic plates. They eat standing and gossiping about how great and impressive the funeral was, and what inspiring speeches were made, and who has been secretly sleeping with whose wife. The final stratum is that of the rabble. They are fed samp and beef in communal basins, as is done at this funeral in the settlement. The difference in the settlement is that everyone eats like this. The ranked strata do not exist.

  At township funerals, Toloki belongs to the second stratum. He usually collects his food, and drifts to some spot where there are no people, and quietly eats from his plate.

  No one ever has to stand there and separate people according to their strata. People know who they are and where they belong. These things always work themselves out.

  Toloki dips his hand into the samp over and over again. No one complains about him, since the only odour emanating from him is that of perfume. He needs to eat and fill his stomach, especially since he does not know where his next meal will come from. He has some money, but he is far away from the places where he used to buy his luxury food of cakes and green onions. Of course he can buy the normal food of mealie-meal and some relish from a spaza shop, and they can cook it together on the primus stove in the shack. But will Noria agree to that? Won’t she say that she doesn’t take things from men? He needs to tread lightly, until he has a better understanding of this woman. Or at least until he knows exactly which are the right things to do, and which are the wrong ones.

  After the meal, Toloki and Noria go back to their shack. They have some time to kill before she goes to help Madimbhaza, and then to attend her meeting. Toloki has promised to go with her, so as to see what kind of work she does. But first he must change into his civilian clothes. Noria has suggested that he wear his mourning clothes only when he goes to funerals. At home, he must look like other men. It is not a bad idea, really, since it will help to preserve his costume for further years of mourning.

  They sit outside the shack and talk about the world, and about death. Noria says she is beginning to get the hang of this mourning business. And she believes that she is able to read meaning into the sounds that he produces. But she needs to attend more funerals with Toloki in order to thoroughly grasp the profound meaning that he draws from the depth of his soul. They try a few sounds together, especially the new goatly sounds. Noria’s first attempts are quite amateurish, and they both burst out laughing.

  ‘I am sorry, Toloki, to laugh about such serious matters.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Noria. In death we laugh as well. Don’t you remember that when you were a little girl, your own friend died laughing?’

  ‘You are such a wise man, Toloki.’

  Toloki tells her of an occasion, not long ago, when the whole graveyard broke into laughter. There were four funerals taking place at the same time. One of them was a Zionist funeral, and was particularly noisy, since Zionists beat drums and dance around when they pray. At the funeral where he was mourning, things were very solemn, as the family belonged to a denomination that believed in burying their dead with quiet dignity. At the various funerals, preachers were preaching, orators were making their speeches, and people were singing various hymns. Each person was supposed to concentrate on the activities of the funeral she or he was attending, and ignore the noise from other funerals.

  The Nurse at the Zionist funeral had a booming voice. Soon, all ears at all four funerals were directed towards him, and people were no longer paying attention to their own funerals. He made a naughty joke about the deceased, and everyone at the various funerals in the cemetery burst out laughing. This happened at the same moment that the priest at the funeral where Toloki was mourning was engaged in the most serious part of the ritual, that of praying for the soul of the deceased so that it should be happily received into the portals of heaven by none other than St Peter himself. Even the priest couldn’t help laughing. Everybody laughed for a long time, for it was the kind of joke that seemed to grow on you. You would laugh and eventually stop. But after a few minutes you would think of the joke again, and you would burst out laughing all over again. Laughter kept coming in spurts, with some people even rolling on the ground. When the four processions finally marched off in various directions, some people were still laughing. Others had stomach cramps from laughing too much.

  ‘In our language there is a proverb which says the greatest death is laughter.’

  ‘You see! I was right, Toloki, when I said that you knew how to live.’

  Church ministers have spoken at length about heaven, and the infinite joy experienced by those who are lucky enough to go there. Toloki wonders if their joy is as great as the joy he is feeling now, sitting in front of their shack with Noria. The pleasant smell of cheap perfume envelopes them both. It is Toloki’s perfume, which he shared with her this morning.

  Their conversation drifts to the village. They remember their childhood and their youth. Some memories are happy. Others are sad. But there is no bitterness in either of them. Sometimes they do not see things in the same way. For instance, at one stage. Noria says that Jwara was a great man, a great creator who was misunderstood. Toloki chooses not to comment on this. His views on the matter are very different, but why spoil the moment by bringing up contrary opinions about a past that is dead and buried forever?

  ‘I am sorry that I did not go to his funeral, at least to sing for him for the last time. Even now I feel that I still owe him one last song. Things will never be right for me
until I have sung that song. One day, when I go back home I will visit his grave, and sing him his last song. Did you mourn at his funeral?’

  ‘No. I learnt of his death long after he had finished dying.’

  ‘I hear his dying was a long process.’

  ‘I heard from Nefolovhodwe that it took many years.’

  ‘The same Nefolovhodwe who pretended that he did not know you and your family? How did he come to discuss Jwara’s death with you?’

  Toloki tells her that after he became an established Professional Mourner, he remembered his debt to Nefolovhodwe. The woman who was referred to as his wife had given him food. He had vowed that he was going to pay for it once he had the money, as he was not a beggar. He had told both Nefolovhodwe and the woman that he was going to pay back every cent’s worth of food that he ate at their house.

  Toloki stood at Nefolovhodwe’s gate and rang the bell, summoning the security men to open for him. A guard came and demanded to know what he wanted. He told him that he had come to pay Nefolovhodwe his money. The guard phoned the great man and told him that there was a strange man called Toloki who wanted to pay him his money. He was led into the house.

  He was introduced to a petite girl who was referred to as the great man’s wife. This one looked young enough to be his granddaughter. Toloki wondered what had happened to the leupa lizard, who had had a heart of gold under her painted exterior.

  Nefolovhodwe was sitting at his usual desk, playing with his fleas. The room was different though. The walls were made of marble, and there were small onyx tombstones all around the room. The doors of the room were in the shape of gates made from giant pearls. They were obviously imitation pearls, since no oyster of such size could ever exist.

  ‘Welcome to the Pearly Gates, young man. I thought I was never going to see you again. What do you want this time? A job again?’

  Toloki was surprised that the great man remembered him, since on the previous occasion he had proved to have such a short memory. He told him that he did not want a job. He had come to pay for all the food he had eaten in his house. At first Nefolovhodwe felt insulted, but then decided that Toloki must be mad. Perhaps poverty had gone to his head and loosened a few screws.

  ‘Why are you dressed like that?’

  ‘I am a Mourner.’

  ‘Are you mourning for your father?’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘You mean you don’t even know that your father is dead?’

  Then Nefolovhodwe told him of Jwara’s long process of dying. Toloki told him that he was not mourning for Jwara, as he did not even know that he was dead. He was a Professional Mourner who mourned for the nation, and was paid in return. Nefolovhodwe laughed. Toloki walked to his desk and dumped some bank notes on it. He had already determined how much the food he had eaten in that house had cost. Then he walked out with all the dignity he could muster.

  ‘Hey, you come back here, you ugly boy! Don’t you see that you have scared my fleas?’

  But Toloki did not turn back. He proudly walked straight ahead, until he had left the premises of the man for whom he had lost all respect.

  In the afternoon, Noria and Toloki go to Madimbhaza’s house. She says she wants to introduce him to this woman because she is the most important person in her life.

  She is an old woman, this Madimbhaza. She lives in a two-roomed shack which is bigger than the usual settlement shack. Many children are playing in the mud outside. Some of the children are on crutches, and some have their legs in callipers. Her home is known by everyone as ‘the dumping ground’, since women who have unwanted babies dump them in front of her door at night. She feeds and clothes the children out of her measly monthly pension.

  Madimbhaza used to work as a domestic servant in the city. She stopped working three months ago when her legs gave in as a result of arthritis. While she was working, Noria and one or two other women from the settlement used to look after the children. They were not paid any salary for this, since Madimbhaza could not have afforded it. Now that she is at home most of the time, the women, Noria in particular, still come every day to help her with the children. They bathe them, and help them dress. Then they feed them, and take those who have reached school-going age to the school that is made out of shipping containers.

  ‘So this is your young man that I hear people talking about so much, Noria.’

  ‘He is not my young man, Madimbhaza. He is my homeboy.’

  Toloki shakes her hand. In his mind he sees the little Noria in a gymdress squeaking, ‘He’s not my brother!’ Madimbhaza says she is very happy to meet him, as she has heard so much about him.

  Toloki learns that for the past fifteen years Madimbhaza has been taking care of abandoned children. She has often tried to find their biological parents, but usually without success. She says that some mothers have returned to collect their children because of pressure from God, but others have just forgotten about their babies. Some of the children were abandoned because they were born physically handicapped. Others were crippled by polio or other diseases at a later age, and their parents, unable to cope, also abandoned them at the dumping ground. The twilight mum, as Madimbhaza is called in the settlement and the nearby townships, is very proud of all her children.

  ‘God has given me healthy and good children to mother. He knows that I am not young anymore, and that he must give me good children. They all help me around the house and even wash themselves before going to bed at night.’

  The twilight mum says that in addition to good children, God has given her good neighbours. Noria is one of the very best.

  ‘That is why, young man, I don’t ever want to hear her complain about you. Anyone who hurts Noria hurts me.’

  Toloki laughs and promises that Noria will never have cause to complain about him.

  Some of the children are victims of the war that is raging in the land. Their parents died in massacres and in train slaughters. In a recent massacre in the settlement, which was carried out by some of the tribal chief’s followers from the hostels, assisted by Battalion 77 of the armed forces of the government, as many as fifty-two people died, including children. Some children were orphaned overnight. They are now here at the dumping ground.

  ‘All I want to do in life now is to give them a good start and teach them to be good human beings when they grow up. I will die a very happy person if this can be done. These children are all very special to me. I treat them as my very own and they regard me as their mother. Nothing can ever take them away from me.’

  Toloki wonders how this brave and kind woman has survived all these years, with so many mouths to feed. Noria tells him that through all the years she made do with her own meagre earnings. Our elders say that an elephant does not find its own trunk heavy. It was only last month that Madimbhaza received assistance for the first time. A newspaper, City Press, wrote a story about her. As a result, some kind readers donated clothes and blankets for the children.

  It dawns on Toloki for the first time that Noria is still very young at thirty-five. She is handicapped neither physically nor mentally. She is strong, and does not drink. She does not abuse drugs in any form whatsoever. Surely she could have taken a job as a domestic worker. Or as an office cleaner – a job she has some experience in, having done it in the small town back home. She could even sell, fat cakes and fruit on the streets. But she has chosen to spend her days working at the dumping ground.

  It is Noria who knows how to live.

  9

  Women are singing, while they slice loaves of bread on a long makeshift table. Others cut cabbage. Their song is about the freedom that is surely coming tomorrow. They also sing about the enemy that will be defeated, and about the tribal chief who will die like a dog one day. Sometimes they sing about sad things that have happened to their people. Yet their jubilation belies the sadness of their message. It is like those political funerals where the Young Tigers dance to a call-and-response chant. Someone who does not understand the meaning in t
hese chants might be amazed or even shocked at how these youths can be so happy at a funeral. Perhaps the jubilation is due to the fact that part of the message of the songs is that the people shall be victorious in the end.

  The women are excited when Noria arrives with Toloki.

  ‘Hey Noria, you have come with your mate.’

  ‘Yes, so that he should see the work that we do.’

  ‘That is very good, Noria. Our men must see what we are doing, so that when we come home late they cannot complain.’

  ‘He is not my man. He is my homeboy.’

  The women laugh, and say that it is good that homeboys these days move in with their homegirls. They go on teasing about how people from the same village must look after one another, and satisfy each other’s needs. Noria ignores the remarks, and joins the women in cutting the cabbage. She already knows how naughty her friends can be. Toloki, on the other hand, is embarrassed. He is the only man among all these chattering females.

  He recognises the stout ’Malehlohonolo, and shyly smiles at her. She returns the smile.

  ‘Hello, I saw you this morning when you were washing yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you. I heard Noria say that you were going to do washing in the city.’

  ‘Some of us have to work. We don’t all live on the Holy Spirit like your woman.’