Broken River Tent

by Mphuthumi Ntabeni

  ‘The tragic past of the Mfengus refused them the courtesy of trusting any ally so they were tough customers, loyal only to their own survival. Hardships had taught them how to act together for their own benefit alone, and they were unwilling to completely abandon their fate to us. They kept vacillating between revolt against military exploitation by the British and assisting us – but they only ever gave us a little support. The Mfengus were a perfidious lot. They had no battle array, and seldom met any enemy in open field; all their loyalty went with the destruction of their tribehood. The only thing about them to commend is their kindness and hospitality to strangers, and fidelity to their women. Even that they learnt the hard way. Hunger and oppression has been their lot since Mfecane destroyed their tribe.

  ‘Without the Mfengu and KhoiKhoi, even with no guns we could have eventually prevailed over the red devils. Their way of fighting was just not suitable for combat against us. Strong as they might be in open fire, they were almost useless in the bush, or wherever the horizon was obscure. For instance, my men and I were involved in a skirmish with one of their patrols led by Lieutenant Bailie near Ntaba kaNdoda. It was amazingly easy to lure the battalion to the Mngqesha River where I knew they’d be trapped. All I needed to do was wheel my horse around, with my men at a respectable distance. When they saw it was me they were foolishly enticed. Each and every one of them entertained the foolish honour of killing Maqoma, the great perturbator. Rising in their stirrups, they came in a mad rush with drawn swords and pointed guns. I then lowered my body to my horse’s body, with my head almost touching the mane, and rode like hell towards my men. In no time I dropped from their sight as I disappeared into a ravine. They fired in all directions, not sure which way I had gone or how I had suddenly vanished. From there all we needed to do was wait on the leeward side of the krantz until their ammunition ran low while blocking their egress line. By the time they realised this they had nowhere to go except a thicket, where they were cornered like a porcupine by dogs.

  ‘A well-trained hunting dog knows how to avoid the quills of the porcupine. They volleyed a few shots but we didn’t give them much chance to reload. Ho! Hi! Hi! Ho! our spears went, showering a rain of assegais on those who chose to dare attack us. None of them survived in that skirmish.’

  Hintsa’s Head

  BY THE TIME THE MORNING SUN ROUSED INTO ripe blossoming, Phila had already spent some time gardening his thoughts at his laptop. The cows, mooing their way to the fields, shepherded his thoughts when his mind drew a blank. He tamped the cigarette he was smoking and stepped outside to spy on the doings of the day.

  The grass on the hills, fading into the whitish gold of a lion’s mane, looked magnificent when hit by the sun as dawn slowly peeled off the coming day. The wafting morning air, swampish with the river’s sour mesh, raked the rural haunted look over the dry river creeks.

  “Spring is moving on stilts.”

  Phila had not heard Zwelinzima come up behind him and he jumped, startled. “It sure looks that way,” he chuckled. “It is better for us to take off while it’s still early; this sun seems to be lit by a short man.”

  “Yes, our tokoloshes are not lazy in this area.”

  The two men sat on the grass next to each other. An ancient understanding between them required no formulation of words. Fingers of mist crept up from the yellow reed bank like arrows of supplication.

  “Perhaps, when you come this way again, the children will have long gone to the cities. My wife will struggle here on her own, but she is a strong woman.” He kept quiet to see if Phila was with him. When Phila simply nodded he went on: “This life, our life, will close its chapter when the likes of us fold to join our ancestors. Perhaps, sometime, someone will speak of things that happened here; how we tried to push back the flood of the sea – a useless thing, now to think about it. Times move on. Those who can’t move with them must remain in the graves. The best that can be done for them is to put a stone to their memory. Jong’Umsobomvu? That was a man among men! None like him shall be born of this land again.” Zwelinzima’s lively eyes were filled with a young boy’s remorse.

  Phila was mute. Something in him understood it all, though he could not explain. A dry smile was trapped on his face as he went inside to get their bags. Gently, they bade farewell to each member of the family, as though they had known each other for a lifetime instead of just one day. When he tried to speak as they drove away Phila’s voice became choked with emotion. He felt, once again, the world biting into him.

  “You know that he’s sick? Cancer,” Matswane stated, almost as soon as they were on the road.

  Phila felt irritated by her need for intrusion, her lack of discretion and understanding of circumlocution in rural traditional ways, and her inability to keep quiet at this early hour. But he knew there was no point raising this with her; he knew what she would say. “I’m not like you. I don’t know how to hide my vulnerabilities …”

  When they got to King William’s Town Phila visited the museum while Matswane tied – or rather untied – the loose ends of her contract with the provincial government. At the museum, a middle-aged guy, wearing a chiffon shirt and blue jeans, ushered him in. He seemed preoccupied as he spoke of the history of the area and the museum. Displayed in protective glass were materials that had been presented to Mandela by various world leaders. The guide explained about measuring the revolution of the country, but he talked without much enthusiasm.

  In a dimmed corner hung an illuminated poster of Steve Biko lying dead on the cement prison floor. This caught Phila’s attention. The face of Biko, proud and vulnerable, like a bruised and skinned plum, lacked the tranquillity of restful sacrifice. This Biko looked stubbornly independent even in death. It only occurred to him then that Biko had been born in this town. The guide, with trembling assurance that completed Phila’s thoughts, framed the bleakness of Biko’s last days for his information. There were many stains of exaggerated telling in his narration but Phila was too involved to speak. The part that impressed itself on Phila was what the guide said in quoting Biko: Our culture must be defined in concrete terms. It had always amazed him how museum and art gallery curators knew how to sieve things into their essence. You could forget for a moment that they themselves didn’t really know the depths they pronounced sometimes. Still they were able to separate the chaff from the grain of history, which was a fair starting point.

  Outside, the small provincial capital of the Eastern Cape had other icons of dissipation. Its people seemed glazed with strandedness. Phila lay down on the lawn of the public square, sky- and people-gazing while waiting for Matswane to collect him. Everything looked dappled, sounded graceful. Somehow he felt it right that he was there, in that town, in that park, at that moment, with those people, in this life. With Hopkins he felt deep gratitude for the dappled things and the grandeur of God that charges the world. He was beginning to suspect he might be having a mystical moment when he felt a tug on his foot. It was Matswane, rousing him. Her business done, they drove back to East London.

  Phila sneaked out of the B&B very early in the morning to buy fresh bread. He drank in the fresh sea air on the promenade with the early morning joggers. As he walked he was struck by the dereliction of the dying industrial compound: rampart buildings constructed of uncut mortared stones; ghost openings where once were windows and doors; scant roof covering and timber, flaking walls, urine-drenched passages. It seemed as though the city was already skeletoning its past.

  Decay was everywhere denoted by the barrack buildings rimmed by half-rotted cell doors. Iron bars, once thick as wrists and strong as mountains, bent like ghosts of failure.

  This is no state of decay but of death, thought Phila to himself. Tired of visiting places of the past, forts of shame, walls of staggering imperialism beneath two centuries of delusional sinecures, he turned back. He went to the Spar for bread, eggs and such, and then, for whatever reason, perhaps to make himself less conspicuous, he also started jogging, like the rest of
the people on the beachfront promenade.

  When he got back to the B&B Mrs Boyle greeted him enthusiastically as he jingled the keys out of his pocket. He gave her a curt nod, hoping to get away quickly.

  “Hello! We’ve not seen you in a while.” The fug of smoke from the permanent cigarette in her mouth stifled the passage air. She was a slightly overweight middle-aged white woman with too much time on her hands. Besides a nosy personality, she was a right laugh.

  “Yes – I’ve been out of town again.” Phila tried in vain to pass her.

  “You young people are always on the road. Roads today are a guillotine, you must be very careful.”

  “Always careful.”

  “Did you hear what they did to the poor woman at No 3? Three men …” She went on to narrate how three men pretending to be salesmen came to her flat and held the ‘poor woman’ hostage while they cleaned her place out. “Took all the furniture,” said Mrs Boyle. “She was lucky they didn’t hurt her. The horror of it! Times are bad …”

  “Yes, they are, Mrs Boyle.”

  “That’s why I never open my door, even if the Pope comes knocking.” She took a long drag of her cigarette. “But when I saw this lovely lady in the foyer waiting for you, I knew no harm would come of it. I saw you go out earlier, probably just going to the shops, I thought, so I invited her in for tea to wait for you in my flat. Lovely girl, you must take care of her.”

  Phila felt a little confused.

  “Come inside now. Let’s not keep her waiting any longer. Mind you, it is dangerous these days to have a girl without … you know what. Come along now, she’s waiting. I hope she’s finished her tea. You don’t know things that happen in this place; even my husband thinks it is too much. Mind you, he grew up on a farm and saw a thing or two in his day. He’s not the one to worry about such things. In our era we …” She went on ahead, happy to have someone to talk to beside her husband who, between his job and watching rugby on TV, did not say much beyond calling to her to bring him a can of beer from the fridge.

  “When you said you were in East London, I knew this was where you’d be staying.”

  Nandi spoke in her usual calm manner, as if it were preordained that they should meet here, on this day, at a beachfront guest house, Phila in his tracksuit and jogging shoes, holding a grocery bag in a trembling hand. He didn’t speak, just signed a nod to Mrs Boyle, before leading Nandi to the room. He felt cold. Had it been a cold morning? He fiddled with the door until it opened. By the looks of things Matswane was still asleep. He prayed she was still asleep.

  Nandi stepped inside and threw her handbag on the sofa. “So, what exactly is going on?” she demanded forcefully, uncharacteristically. “I am not putting my life on hold for you again. So you had better let me know now what is actually going on?”

  “I didn’t ask you to put your life on hold for me,” Phila answered sheepishly, sidestepping the question. He wanted to tell Nandi to keep her voice down but knew he couldn’t without giving away that he wasn’t alone in this place. The door to the bedroom was ajar. If Mat was awake, no doubt she would be listening.

  “Oh! But you don’t have to say it. You know when you reappear I am just gonna drop everything and continue with you where we left off?

  “Well, not –”

  “Good morning.” Matswane appeared from the bedroom, wearing Phila’s T-shirt. “Am I interrupting something?”

  Phila dropped back on the sofa adjacent to Nandi’s.

  “Is this her? This …” Nandi held back her words. Scooping up her handbag, she said: “You know what? The two of you deserve each other.” Then she went for the door. Phila followed her but couldn’t catch the door before she banged it. He wrenched it open but Nandi was already taking the last flight of stairs to the pavement. A flabbergasted Mrs Boyle, cigarette in mouth, and obviously trying to make sense of the sudden commotion, stood in the passage, staring. When she saw Matswane following Phila in a hurry, the penny dropped. With a surprised “Oops!” she hastily went back into her flat and shut the door.

  When Phila reached the pavement Nandi’s car was already rounding the corner. Slowly he went back inside. Upstairs Matswane was sitting on the sofa. He sat next to her and she leant her neck against his shoulder. “So that was your woman?” When Phila didn’t reply, she said: “I think if you want to be with her you should drive back now to her.” Phila remained silent. Then he got up and went onto the balcony, where he lit a cigarette.

  After a while he went back inside and gathered up the grocery bag from the lounge floor. As he carried it into the kitchen he felt a lump in his throat. “I was aiming at serving you breakfast in bed,” he said over his shoulder.

  Matswane had followed him in. “We can prepare breakfast together,” she said. “It’ll be great – our first prepared meal together.”

  There was something about the eagerness in her voice that vaguely suggested innocence and that pleased Phila.

  “Okay.” He started with the scrambled eggs.

  “Don’t put garlic in my scrambled egg, babes. I hate that,” Mat said when she noticed him making to mince the garlic.

  Phila softly laughed. “We’ve just discovered something we disagree on. I love garlic scrambled eggs.”

  They ate breakfast in a mild discursive pleasantness. After washing the dishes they sat on the couch for a while, feeling no need to puncture the comfortable silence. Neither of them mentioned Nandi, and that felt okay. Mat suggested they catch a movie, but Phila said: “Tell you what, let’s pack our stuff and cross the Kei to the former Transkei, and I’ll show you where the Xhosa king met his ignominious death at the hands of the British. I need to go there anyway.’

  “Sounds good.” Matswane was getting used to him by now. “Give me a few minutes, okay, babes?”

  Phila closed the door of the flat slowly and made them walk on tiptoe past Mrs Boyle’s flat, but it was no use. She opened the door and said, “Off you go so soon? Take care on the road. Sorry about early on, I had not realised. And don’t worry – I always keep an eye.”

  “Thanks, Mrs Boyle. Ndiza kubambela ekushiyayo.”

  “Zandi shiya zonke mntana wam, akusekho ndiyidingayo.” She always amazed Phila with her fluent Xhosa – perks of growing up on a farm.

  “And that?” Matswane could not suppress her curiosity. “I was just thanking her with a known Xhosa proverb that says: ‘I’ll catch you one – a bird – that is fleeing from you,’ which basically means ‘I owe you one.’”

  “And her answer?”

  “She has subtle humour sometimes. She answered: ‘They’ve all flown away from me, my child, and I’ve no interest in catching any of them’ – meaning she is no longer interested in fleeing things, and would rather stick with what she knows.”

  Phila and Matswane giggled.

  “I love Eastern Cape whites for making an effort to speak African vernaculars,” said Matswane.

  “An effort? She probably speaks better Xhosa than I do! Divide and rule struggled here because of our mutual dependency on farms.

  “Hence most of us speak all three languages of the area: Xhosa, Afrikaans and English.”

  “That’s great!”

  “We also fought the most, fiercest and the longest.”

  They pulled into a service station to fill up. “Were we to ask this petrol attendant about himself, I mean his background, do you think we would learn much beyond his clan name?” Phila asked Matswane as the man walked towards the car.

  “I doubt it. Perhaps it is not necessary that he does. There are other ways of knowing your identity without necessarily being in touch with your history.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Traditional practices, perhaps? You don’t have to be a historian to know and practise those; they can just be handed down to you by your parents.”

  “I see. Don’t ask me why, but I can tell that he’s umGcaleka, that is, he comes from beyond the Kei, instead of iRharhabe, who are mostly from this s
ide of the river.”

  “Everything regarding you millet eaters is complicated to me. I never even knew you were sub-divided.”

  “All cats look alike in the dark, I guess. Mind you, I’ll admit to not knowing the difference between a Pedi and a Tswana.”

  “Well, me too, before they speak and I am able to distinguish,” Matswane said, adding, “but you can tell before they speak.”

  They took Oxford Street towards Old Umtata Road, then to the freeway, travelling for thirty minutes before descending the sharp Kei Cuttings. In passing the former border posts at the foot of the mountains Phila felt a sanguine frenzy. These were the roads he had had to travel with mounting dissatisfaction to his boarding school decades ago. It became clear to him now that displacement starts at home, and is a perspectival dispersion that estranges familiar landscape. He wondered if his over scrutinisation of the familiar would eventually render it unheimlich, uncanny, to him. It pleased him to see Mat basking in contentment as forbidding granite cliffs were replaced by hills and valleys where flocks of sheep grazed. In the distance they looked like colonies of ant hills.

  Sedentary shepherds sat on the roadside in abject impotence as the road climbed towards Butterworth, with the grass getting tawny and the soil ochre. About fifteen kilometres outside the town Phila asked Matswane to stop the car. He got out, and she followed him. They sat on the bonnet looking at the vast fields and clusters of Xhosa villages.

  Then Phila started heaving, as if he was about to retch. He looked at Matswane with sunken eyes.

  “Are you okay?” asked Matswane, concerned.

  “Yes. Maqoma is here, forcing his way.”

  Matswane did not understand. She had an involuntary scowl on her face. “Is he hurting you?” she asked.