Little Suns (9 page)

‘
Nd’zak’fel’aph’ufa khona
,’ he said. The king had said this before; at that meeting with the magistrates.
Where you die, I will die
.

Malangana’s consternation was not lost on Hope. He gave the young man what he thought was a benevolent smile and shook his beard in his direction. He then poured his guests shots of brandy and asked how they liked the fire-water, as their fellow natives called it. Mhlontlo and Malangana mumbled their pleasure. Warren raised his glass and said ‘Cheers’ before swallowing the shot in one gulp.

‘The Dutch are getting better at this all the time,’ said Warren.

‘Maybe someday one will retire in a Cape vineyard,’ said Hope, and the two white men chuckled. ‘Find refuge in a distillery.’

The chuckles became laughter. It must have been an inside joke because the two amaMpondomise men did not get it.

‘And how do you like the new extension to The Residency?’ Hope’s question was directed to Warren.

‘Mrs Hope showed me around,’ said Warren. ‘Solid construction, sir. One doesn’t see this kind of workmanship in these parts.’

Hope went on about how parsimonious the Government could be. It had not been easy to get approval for these improvements.

‘It reminds me of when I first came here two years ago, all the difficulties I encountered getting approval for the erection of suitable quarters for myself and my clerk,’ said Hope sadly. ‘I had to live in a Kafir hut.’

That, of course, was an extremely uncomfortable situation for him and his dear wife, Emmie. They had been brought here from Basutoland where he had constructed two beautiful houses at his expense, which he had to abandon at short notice. Surely the Government did not expect him to use his own meagre resources to build a house. For months on end not only did he reside in a Kafir hut, he conducted the administration of the district and presided over court cases in Kafir huts. It was demeaning to the dignity of the Government that its officers had to live and transact business in that kind of environment. He had to struggle before funds were allocated to build The Residency and the Courthouse. And now finally there were the extensions that Emmie was very pleased about; creating a drawing room that was separate from the dining room.

The two amaMpondomise men just sat there and listened and said nothing.

As they were riding back to Sulenkama Mhlontlo asked Malangana what Hope and Warren were talking about.

‘It was just a lot of nonsense about how he struggled to get Government to build him a house.’

‘So he doesn’t always get what he wants from his masters?’

‘Ultimately he did.’

‘Only ultimately. He may not get the guns we have asked for. We won’t fight the war against Magwayi if he doesn’t supply us with guns.’

‘You promised him . . . “Where you die, I will die.”’

‘You will never understand matters of statecraft,’ said Mhlontlo firmly, indicating that the subject was closed.

They rode silently for a while. The sun had long set, yet the earth was breathing out heat through its fissures.

‘This confounded drought!’ said Malangana.

‘It knells death, little son of my father,’ said Mhlontlo.

Cattle were emaciated and crops were withering away. Even Mhlontlo’s own fields were cracked like the heels of an old woman. His sorghum, beans and pumpkin had died prematurely, soon after peeping out of the ground. A week before he had sent Malangana and his eldest son Charles to sell some of his cattle to purchase grain. Some cattle died on the way.

But the drought did not only knell the death of cattle. The queen’s life was ebbing away and the king feared the worst. What frustrated him most was that he was himself a healer,
ixhwele
, yet he was hopeless against the evil forces that were consuming his wife to the bone. amaMpondomise had a saying that a doctor could not heal himself. It was obvious that he could not heal his wife either. He became an angry and impatient man. The diviners and herbalists dreaded his visits to the Great House. He would kneel by the queen’s bedding, hold her limp hand and gaze into her eyes. But her eyes did not return the gaze. They hid behind a pane of greyness instead. He would then rise to his feet and pace the floor, yelling at everyone and calling them names.

‘You’re all useless! If you had lived in the domain of Shaka kaSenzangakhona he would have killed you all.’

He summoned his uncle Gxumisa to the Great Place. Gxumisa suggested that abaThwa rainmakers should be called. Healing the land from the drought might also serve to heal the queen from her ailment. abaThwa were always the final resort when things were really desperate. amaMpondomise despised them as people who owned no property, especially cattle, and whose dwellings were the natural caves in the mountains. Yet they were in awe of these small-statured people for their prowess with curative herbs and for their skill in the manufacture of rain. Both of these gifts were a result of the fact that as mountain dwellers they were close to the rain clouds and to the roots and berries that grew only on the steep slopes. They were people of the eland and the praying mantis and the snake. It was believed that many of them were
iinzalwamhlaba
– autochthons.

Gxumisa led a delegation to the mountains to look for a rain doctor of the abaThwa people. Malangana had wanted to be part of the delegation if only to observe at first hand how abaThwa lived and conducted their affairs, which might give him some guidance on how to deal with Mthwakazi and slake his unrequited love for her. He was hoping to learn a thing or two that he might use to impress her. But Mhlontlo would not allow him to go because he needed him to interpret in his meetings with Hope. And there seemed to be more and more of them lately.

The delegation walked for five days before they reached the Caves of Ngqunkrungqu. They came back with a troupe of abaThwa who danced and tranced and boiled herbs that they fed the queen. They bathed her in them and made her throw up and emptied her royal bowels with enemas. Still the heavens refused to open up and shower the earth with its blessings. And the queen refused to get better.

Hamilton Hope, on the other hand, was getting better, which was a blow to Malangana and all those who had hoped his spirit was about to float across the oceans to the land of his ancestors.

Malangana stared at the drum and thought of its owner. She had been elusive. Sometimes he even suspected she was an illusion. Until he went by the Great House and saw her outside dancing with the diviners or chanting with the shamans and
amaxhwele
herbalists. It assured him she was real. As real as the woman who had argued with him about the number of suns in the skies. Why, she appeared real even in the dreams where she hid herself among the boulders like Gcazimbane and he had to search for her. As real as the wetness of his wet dreams.

He remembered one day soon after they had returned from that meeting with the magistrates in Elliot. He was sitting by the kraal with a group of his age-mates listening to Gxumisa and other elders reciting some of the great historical events of the amaMpondomise nation. He decided to test the waters and bring in the issue of Mthwakazi. He seized the opportunity when Gxumisa served each man from his rock-rabbit-skin bag a pinch of
icuba-laBathwa
, the tobacco of the Bushmen
,
also known as
dagab
by the Khoikhoi or
dagga
by the Trek-Boers. As the men stuffed it in their pipes and lit them Gxumisa said, ‘Though abaThwa are such puny people their tobacco has a gigantic punch.’

The men laughed as they puffed on and filled the air with the dizzying aroma.

‘Talking of abaThwa,’ said Malangana, ‘where did this girl who nurses the queen come from? Who are her people?’

‘No one knows,’ said Nzuze, one of Mhlontlo’s younger brothers.

‘How is that possible?’ asked Malangana.

‘It is true,’ said Gxumisa, blowing a helix of smoke. ‘She is a child of the earth.’

Malangana discovered for the first time that Mthwakazi was not born of any woman nor begot of any man. She sprang from the earth like a fresh millet plant. It was like that with some of the abaThwa people. They were children of the earth –
iinzalwamhlaba
.

‘So what’s going to happen when someone wants to marry her? With whom are his people going to negotiate
lobolo
?’

Mahlangeni broke out laughing. Though he was older than Malangana and was a family man the two men had established a close friendship after Mahlangeni sacrificed his buttocks that were ripped to bits by Hamilton Hope’s salted cat-o’-nine-tails. Malangana once confided in him how he was being haunted by Mthwakazi. Mahlangeni, of course, had pooh-poohed the whole idea. How could a noble Mpondomise man even entertain such thoughts about a low-born woman? Or an autochthon as it had now been revealed?

Malangana glared at him.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ said Mahlangeni, giggling like a naughty girl.

‘Why, nephew, are you thinking of taking her for a bride?’ asked Gxumisa.

He was quite perfunctory about the question. He thought he was just teasing his nephew.

‘No, no, I am just asking,’ said Malangana.

He was fidgeting, rolling the bowl of his pipe in his palms.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mahlangeni, laughing.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Malangana. ‘She’s a person too.’

Everyone stared at Malangana. It hit them for the first time that something was serious here. Nzuze contemplated him sternly.

‘You look as shocked as if I said I want to marry a clanswoman,’ said Malangana.

Marrying a woman from your own clan would, of course, have been a taboo of the first order. amaMpondomise clans took wives from other clans to avoid inbreeding, even though their common ancestor dated back to the 1500s.

‘You can’t be serious, younger brother,’ said Nzuze. ‘She is of the abaThwa people.’

Gxumisa took a long drag from his pipe and ejected one long jet of smoke.

‘I thought this was a joke,’ he said. ‘Does Mhlontlo know about this?’

‘Nzuze and Mahlangeni are the ones who are making this a serious issue,
bawo
,’ said Malangana. ‘For me it was just a fleeting thought. The king knows nothing about it.’

‘
Hayi hayi hayikhona!
His reaction tells me that this is serious,’ said Nzuze. ‘Listen to me, little brother. Do not even entertain such thoughts. You are the son of Matiwane. The grandson of Myeki. Look for a wife elsewhere. Although you are from Matiwane’s Iqadi House, he honoured you by naming you after our founding ancestor. You cannot disgrace our nation by marrying a Bushwoman. I am going to oppose that. And I am going to make sure that my brother, the king, does not give his blessing to such a marriage. Marry well like our king. Marry from the amaGcaleka or amaRharhabe or abaThembu or amaMpondo or any other noble nation.’

‘What if I like the Mthwakazi?’ asked Malangana.

‘If you really like the Mthwa woman you can have her as your fifth or sixth wife, something to play with when you come home tired from the fields or from battle – not the mother of your heirs,’ explained Nzuze patiently. ‘Make her an Iqadi, not of your Great House, not of your Right-hand House, perhaps of your Left-hand House, which would make her sixth in rank.’

Malangana and Mahlangeni broke out laughing. In a marriage of a well-off Mpondomise man there were three main wives: the senior wife belonged to the Great House, the second wife to the Right-hand house and the third to the Left-hand House. But he could still marry more wives. For instance he could marry a wife who would act as a helper to the senior wife. She would therefore belong to the Iqadi House to the Great House. The ranking became complicated when he married more and more wives and the Left and Right-hand Houses had their own Iqadi Houses – wives who served as their helpers. What Nzuze was suggesting was therefore strange to the men because it was another way of suggesting the marriage should never happen at all.

‘Do you think I am going to be so rich as to marry six wives?’ asked Malangana. ‘Even Mhlontlo doesn’t have six wives.’

‘By the time Malangana is able to marry the sixth one he will be an old man and Mthwakazi will be a shrivelled old woman with abaThwa great-grandchildren of her own in some distant caves somewhere.’

‘Or she’ll be dead,’ said another man.

‘We’ll all be dead,’ said Gxumisa.

The men burst out laughing again.
Icuba-laBathwa
was adding to their mirth, for it was known to cause grown men to giggle and guffaw ceaselessly like maidens gossiping and shrieking at the river while washing clothes and beating the leather karosses and skirts against the rocks.

Malangana shook his head sadly. To these men Mthwakazi was a joke.

Indeed, she was a joke to everyone else at Sulenkama. For one thing, Mthwakazi did not titivate herself with white and red ochre as amaMpondomise maidens did. Her hair was unbraided and, according to other maidens, looked like
iinkobe
– by which they meant it was as though black grain had been scattered sparsely on her head. She wore only a tanned ox-hide skirt and anklets of shrivelled roots instead of an
isikhakha
skirt of calico and the colourful glass beads that were popular with maidens her age throughout the land. What did Malangana see in a girl like that?

‘You can whisper it to me,
mfondini
,’ said Mahlangeni, ‘what is it that you see in this
nkazana
of abaThwa people?’

‘It will not happen,’ Nzuze kept repeating. ‘We’ll not allow it. Just let my brother hear of it.’

‘How do you know it will be an issue with him?’ asked Gxumisa. ‘You’re all hypocrites! All of you here of the Majola lineage have the blood of abaThwa flowing in your bodies, and you are not ashamed to include that fact in your praise poetry by calling each other
thole loMthwakazi
.’
The progeny of a Bushwoman
.

He pulled hard on his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke at Nzuze’s face.

‘But when it comes to the real world you think you are too good to share your
icantsi
mat with a Mthwa woman,
rha
!’