The Heart of Redness: A Novel Read online

  The Great White Chief was relentless in his pursuit of Mlanjeni. He suspected that the prophet was plotting something sinister against the Great Queen and her Empire. He instructed his magistrates to summon him to their offices, where disciplinary measures would be taken. When the prophet refused to hand himself over, the Great White Chief felt personally insulted. One of his most zealous magistrates sent a soldier called John Dalton with a detachment of policemen to Kala’s homestead to arrest the Man of the River. But Mlanjeni was nowhere to be found. Queen Victoria’s men did not know that he had buried himself under the sacred waters of the Keiskamma River.

  The Great White Chief read conspiracy and uprising in this whole sorry affair. He summoned all the kings and chiefs of the amaKhosa people for the usual boot-kissing ritual. He vowed that he would restore law and order throughout British Kaffraria and Xhosaland. But some of the most important kings and chiefs did not attend the ceremony. A further insult to the Empire.

  Twin-Twin observed the ceremony from a distance. He reported to the men of his village how the white man who had styled himself the father of the amaXhosa had ranted and raved and threatened to raze the whole amaXhosa nation to the ground.

  The people had had enough of the Great White Chief. Mounted men, led by Xikixa, went to the Keiskamma River to consult with the prophet. Mlanjeni ordered that all dun and yellow cattle be slaughtered, for they were an abomination. He doctored the military men for war so that the guns of the British would shoot hot water instead of bullets. The Great War of Mlanjeni had begun.

  It was an ugly and tedious war that lasted for three years, during which the Khoikhoi people of the Kat River Valley abandoned their traditional alliance with the British and fought on the side of the amaXhosa. Both Twin and Twin-Twin fought in the war. And so did Xikixa, who was still strong enough to carry a shield and a spear. The Great White Chief was frustrated. He was heard on many occasions talking of his intention to exterminate all amaXhosa.

  “Extermination is now the only word and principle that guides us. I loved these people and considered them my children. But now I say exterminate the savage beasts!” he told his field commanders. Some of them were seen marching to war with the word “Extermination!” emblazoned on their hats.

  Twin and Twin-Twin fought under General Maqoma in the Amathole Mountains. It was by and large a guerrilla war. They ambushed the British soldiers when they least expected it. The great size of the mountain range made things very difficult for the Imperial forces, and gave the amaXhosa armies many opportunities to destroy the enemy soldiers.

  It was at one such ambush that Twin and Twin-Twin—accompanied by a small band of guerrilla fighters—chanced upon a British camp hidden in a gorge. A small group of British soldiers were cutting off the ears of a dead umXhosa soldier.

  “What are they doing that for? Are they wizards?” asked Twin-Twin. “Or is it their way of removing iqungu?”

  Iqungu was the vengeful force generated by war medicines. A soldier who died in war could have his iqungu attack the slayer, bloating and swelling up his body until he died. The amaXhosa believed that the British soldiers had their own iqungu. Therefore, they mutilated the bodies of slain British soldiers to render their iqungu powerless. This was considered savagery of the worst kind by the British, whenever they came across their dead comrades with ripped stomachs on the Amathole slopes.

  “It is not for iqungu,” explained Twin, who seemed to know more about the ways of the British from listening to fireside gossip. “It is just the witchcraft of the white man. They take those ears to their country. That’s what they call souvenirs.”

  The twins saw that the leader of the soldiers was a man they had met before. John Dalton. He had been one of the soldiers accompanying the Great White Chief during the boot-kissing ceremony. He had been introduced then as an important man in the entourage of soldiers. He spoke isiXhosa, so he was the interpreter. It was the same John Dalton who had been sent with a detachment of policemen to hunt down the Man of the River.

  Then, to the horror of the men watching, the soldiers cut off the dead man’s head and put it in a pot of boiling water.

  “They are cannibals too,” hissed Twin-Twin.

  The British soldiers sat around and smoked their pipes and laughed at their own jokes. Occasionally one of the soldiers stirred the boiling pot, and the stench of rotten meat floated up to the twins’ group. The guerrillas could not stand it any longer. With bloodcurdling screams they sprang from their hiding place and attacked the men of Queen Victoria. One British soldier was killed, two were captured, and the rest escaped.

  “It is our father!” screamed Twin. “They were going to eat our father!”

  It was indeed the headless body of Xikixa.

  “We were not going to eat your father,” said John Dalton, prisoner of war, in his perfect isiXhosa. “We are civilized men, we don’t eat people.”

  “Liar!” screamed Twin-Twin. “Why would you cook anything that you are not going to eat?”

  “To remove the flesh from the skull,” explained Dalton patiently. He did not seem to be afraid. He seemed too sure of himself. “These heads are either going to be souvenirs, or will be used for scientific inquiry.”

  Souvenirs. Scientific inquiry. It did not make sense. It was nothing but the witchcraft of the white man.

  While they were debating the best method of killing their captives, a painful and merciless method that would at least avenge the decapitated patriarch, the British soldiers returned with reinforcements from a nearby camp. Only Twin and Twin-Twin were able to escape. The rest of their party was killed.

  It gnawed the souls of the twins that their father met his end in the boiling cauldrons of the British, and they were never able to give him a decent burial in accordance with the rites and rituals of his people. How would he commune with his fellow ancestors without a head? How would a headless ancestor be able to act as an effective emissary of their pleas to Qamata?

  In the meantime, the Great White Chief was getting ever more desperate. He was unable to win the war outright. The British firepower was stronger, but the guerrilla tactics of the amaXhosa soldiers were creating havoc. General Maqoma and the Khoikhoi chief, Hans Brander, were giving the Imperial armies a hard time. Mutinies became the order of the day. Queen Victoria’s men refused to go to the Amathole Mountains to be slaughtered like cattle by the savage amaXhosa. The Great White Chief was recalled to his country in disgrace, and was replaced by Sir George Cathcart, who proceeded to the eastern frontier to attend to the war with great enthusiasm.

  People were disappointed with Mlanjeni’s prophecies. None of them were coming true. The Imperial bullets did not turn into water. Instead, amaXhosa men were being killed every day.

  But when the amaXhosa were about to give up, the Khoikhoi kept them fighting. At least they had muskets, although they were running out of ammunition. General Maqoma and Chief Brander destroyed more than two hundred farmhouses and captured five thousand cattle from the colonists.

  Khoikhoi women sold their bodies to the British soldiers in order to smuggle canisters of gunpowder to their fighting men. Twin and his friends made snide remarks behind these women’s backs. They slept with British soldiers, the men remarked. They seemed to forget that it was for the gunpowder that was saving the amaXhosa nation from utter defeat that the women were prostituting themselves.

  It was with one of these Khoikhoi women, Quxu, that Twin fell in love. The amaXhosa guerrillas called her Qukezwa. He had seen her leading a group of Khoikhoi women who smuggled gunpowder under their hide skirts, and heard that she was the daughter of an important Khoikhoi chief.

  The next time Twin saw Qukezwa it was at the crossroads. She was standing in front of a pile of stones, oblivious of him. She added another stone to the pile, and carefully placed green herbs on top of it. All the while she was chanting softly, “Father of fathers, oh Tsiqwa! You are our father. Let the clouds burst and the streams flow. Please give life to our flocks, a
nd to us. I am weak, oh Tsiqwa, from thirst and hunger! Give me fields of fruit, that your children may be fed. For you are the father of fathers. O Tsiqwa! Let us sing your praises. In return give us your blessings. Father of fathers! You are our Lord, O Tsiqwa!”

  She then quietly walked away. She seemed to remember something, and went back to the pile of stones.

  “And, O Tsiqwa,” she pleaded, “give us strength to win this war! To drive those who have come to desecrate our sacred grounds into the sea!”

  Twin was struck with wonder.

  “Who is this Tsiqwa you are addressing?” he asked softly. “I do not see anyone.”

  She was startled. But then composed herself when she saw a smiling umXhosa soldier standing in front of her.

  “Tsiqwa is the one who tells his stories in heaven. He created the Khoikhoi and all the world. Even the rocks that lie under water on the riverbed. And all the springs with their snakes that live in them. That is why we never kill the snake of the spring. If we did, the spring would dry out.”

  Twin was captivated by her wisdom. He did not let on that her words were beyond him, and she felt at ease in his presence. Soon they were chatting like old friends. And in the days that followed he made a point of speaking with her whenever she brought smuggled gunpowder to the caves where the guerrilla fighters were hiding. He was in love. He ignored the mocking laughter of his comrades-in-arms who called her a whore.

  From this daughter of joy he learned more about Tsiqwa. Together they sang the song of Heitsi Eibib, the earliest prophet of the Khoikhoi. The song told the story of how Heitsi Eibib brought his people to the Great River. But they could not cross, for the river was overflowing. And the people said to Heitsi Eibib, “Our enemies are upon us, they will surely kill us.”

  Heitsi Eibib prayed, “O Tsiqwa! Father of fathers. Open yourself that I may pass through, and close yourself afterwards.”

  As soon as he had uttered these words the Great River opened, and his people crossed. But when the enemies tried to pass through the opening, when they were right in the middle, the Great River closed upon them, and they all perished in its waters.

  Whenever they sang this song, Twin wished the same thing could happen to the British.

  Sometimes Qukezwa took her beau to the crossroads where there were piles of stones. At different crossroads there were different piles of stones. The lovers added one more stone each time they visited. They also placed green twigs of aromatic herbs such as buchu on the stones. She explained, “To place a stone on this grave of Heitsi Eibib is to be one with the source of your soul.”

  “How can one man have so many graves?” Twin asked.

  “Because he was a prophet and a savior,” she said. “He was the son of Tsiqwa. He lived and died for all the Khoikhoi, irrespective of clan.”

  Twin was sad that no one had ever died for the amaXhosa people in the same way that Heitsi Eibib had died for the Khoikhoi.

  At night she taught him about the stars. Up in the heavens where Tsiqwa told his stories she showed him the bright stars which she called the Seven Sisters.

  “They are the seven daughters of Tsiqwa, the Creator. The Seven Sisters are the star mothers from which all the human race has descended,” she explained.

  There was no doubt in Twin’s mind that he wanted to marry this daughter of the stars. Twin-Twin tried to talk him out of it. He reminded his brother that there were amaXhosa maidens who had never opened their thighs for British soldiers. “What do you see in this lawukazi?” he cried.

  But Twin was immovable in his resolve to marry Qukezwa.

  “At least wait until the war is over,” pleaded Twin-Twin. He hoped that time would cure his brother’s infatuation.

  But Twin would not wait. He married her. And for him she danced the dance of the new rain. And of the new moon.

  In the meantime, the war was raging. And Sir George Cathcart would stop at nothing to win it. If he could not defeat the amaXhosa people in the field of battle, he was going to starve them into submission. He ordered his soldiers to go on a rampage and burn amaXhosa fields and kill amaXhosa cattle wherever they came across them, instead of spending their time hunting down guerrillas in the crevices of the Amathole Mountains. When the troops found unarmed women working in the fields, they killed them too.

  The great fear of starvation finally defeated General Maqoma’s forces, and the amaXhosa surrendered to the British. They turned against Mlanjeni, the Man of the River, because his charms had failed. But other nations continued to believe in him. Messengers from the distant nations of the Basotho, the abaThembu, the amaMpondo and the amaMpondomise visited him, asking for war charms and for the great secret of catching witches.

  Six months after the war ended, the great prophet died of tuberculosis.

  Although the twins’ wealth remained intact—they had hidden most of their herds in the Amathole Mountains—they were disillusioned with prophets. They were devastated by the death of their father, who had ended up as stew in a British pot.

  Mlanjeni’s war, however, had given Twin a beautiful yellow-colored wife, and Twin-Twin the scars of history.

  2

  She starts another hymn. The old ladies pick it up in their tired voices, some of which have become hoarse. They have been singing for the greater part of the night. Her voice remains hauntingly fresh. It is a freshness that cries to be echoed by the green hills, towering cliffs, and deep gullies of a folktale dreamland, instead of being wasted on a dead man in a tattered tent on top of a twenty-story building in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.

  She is now singing “Nearer My God to Thee.” She is nearer to God. The distance from the havoc, murder, and mayhem in the streets down below attests to that fact.

  She is an incongruous mirage. A young woman of hearthly beauty in the midst of shriveled old fogies with shaky voices. She is somebody’s makoti, or daughter-in-law, judging from the way she is dressed: a respectful doek on her head, a shawl over her shoulders, and a dress that reaches a considerable distance below the knees.

  Camagu’s eyes cannot leave her alone. Her beauty is not in harmony with this wake. It does not speak of death. It shouts only of life. Of the secret joys that she harbors under her wifely habit.

  He wonders who she might be. A relative of the deceased, perhaps? Certainly she is not the widow. Otherwise she would be sitting on a mattress in some dark room, weeping her eyes red, and being fussed over by a bunch of fat females. She is most likely a neighbor. Or a family friend.

  Camagu walks out of the tent and joins a group of men who are smoking what smells distinctly like dagga. They are joking about the deceased. From what they say, he must have been a jolly good fellow. But then so are all dead people, especially on the night of their wake. Or on the day of their funeral. The living remember only good things about them.

  Camagu wonders who the dead man was. Obviously he was not one of the important people of the slummy flatland: the gangsters and the pimps. Otherwise the wake would have been teeming with fastguns celebrating by firing in the sky. And prostitutes bidding a fond farewell to a business manager by flaunting the wares he’ll never exploit again.

  He must have been a simple upright citizen, for he is mourned only by the aged and the forgotten. There are no gongs. No dancing girls. No fanfare. No songs of freedom. No fashion parades. Just the grandmothers and grandfathers. The dilapidated orphans of the night. The wanderers whose permanent homes are the tents of the nightly wakes—each night a different vigil. And the young makoti singing the dirge. And Camagu.

  Camagu himself is at the wake not because he has any connection with anyone here. He just found himself here.

  He was at Giggles, a toneless nightclub on the ground floor, when he decided to take a walk. He is a regular at Giggles because he lives on the fourth floor of this building. He does not need to walk the deadly streets of Hillbrow for a tipple.

  Most of Giggles’ patrons are disaffected exiles and sundry learned rejects of this new society. He is on
e of them too, and constantly marvels at the irony of being called an exile in his own country.

  It was becoming too hot at Giggles, with the exiles moaning and whingeing, or going on nostalgic reminiscences about what they sacrificed for this country, enduring hardships in Tanzania, Sweden, America, or Yugoslavia.

  Others were hurling accusations at him: that he was unpatriotic, that he was deserting his country in its hour of need for imperialistic America.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have told them that his suitcase was packed and he was leaving for his second exile tomorrow. He had to tell them, though, because even at this last minute he is trying to sell his old Toyota Corolla. If no one buys it he will have to leave it at some garage, which will sell it for him and cheat him out of a sizable amount.

  Giggles was not the place for him tonight.

  The band too was not at its best. Screeching saxophones rasped his eardrums. The out-of-tune piano murdered Abdullah Ibrahim with every clunk.

  That was why he decided to take a walk. He did not dare go onto the streets. Throughout the night they swarm with restless humanity. Hillbrow never sleeps. Yet he is dead scared of this town. It is four years since he came back from his American exile, but he still has not got used to the fact that every morning a number of dead bodies adorn the streets.

  As he stood outside Giggles, planning his next move, a group of old people walked into the building. They were softly singing a hymn. Since the lift is always dead in this building they began to climb the stairs. He decided to follow them. He did not know where they were going. He did not care. He just wanted to get as far away from Giggles as possible.

  It was a long climb to the top of the building, where a vigil was in progress in a tattered tent. He was out of breath. The aged ones continued with their song as if climbing Everest meant nothing. He joined the mourners and mourned the dead.