Broken River Tent Read online

  ‘Looks like you guys were quite accomplished crop planters. Why, then, did you never opt for commercial farming?’ This was something that had always baffled Phila.

  ‘Commercial farming is something we learnt when we adopted the greed of white people’s ways. Before that in our villages excess harvest was meant for the poor and widows. You could use your cattle wealth to barter, but it was anathema to barter with the earth’s yield, something for which the ancestors would bring you misfortune.’

  ‘Let’s get back to your gadfly,’ Phila said. ‘I prefer that topic to this lesson on ancient agriculture.’

  ‘The day I first laid my eyes on Katye we had risen early as usual to plough the fields. It was a steely-blue morning. I was not feeling too good, having indulged on umgqombothi the previous day, because Aunt Hobe’s son was going to the mountain. This was a son of her shame that cursed her against a married life.’

  ‘Cursed?’

  ‘In our era we were not as free-going as you. Nobody wanted to marry a woman who had already had a child. She and my father brought shame to our tribe because of their excessive libido. Not that I was immune to it myself, but I had ways of concealing my shame. We thought Hobe’s son would come out fair skinned, because she had a tendency to frequent our white visitors’ beds. I remember the shame her advances brought to Nyengane. Khula by then had married Keke, my grandma. Keke – let us say she had appetites. It was she who was the source of high heat in our blood, if you know what I mean. But I digress. Our wooden plough broke towards midday. The sun was too hot so I decided to hide under the willow shade while the oxen drank water and others fixed the plough. That was when I saw Katye. I watched her for a long time with innocent desire.’

  ‘Come on! You lusted after her – you admitted it earlier on.’

  ‘The moment she stood and went to wash her long legs in the river I knew I had to make her mine or lose my mind. There and then I understood Ngqika’s madness over Thuthula.’

  ‘Who was Thuthula?’

  ‘I’ll tell you some other time, but she was the girl who wrecked our nation.’

  ‘Oh, I read about her. She was something like Helen of Troy, hee? Don’t you find it interesting that your father and your uncle fought over her, almost destroyed amaRharhabe in the process, and yet the way you say it, she’s the one who destroyed the nation? And you know for a fact that in your era a girl hardly had any say about who she got married to, especially if, as in this case, it was a chief or a prince who was courting her. The whole thing was decided among men – her father and other male relatives.’

  ‘I never really looked at it that way,’ said Maqoma, frowning.

  Then he attempted to make light of the situation. ‘When a man is stricken by such beauty he can never be right in his mind, unless he implicates himself with it.’

  But Phila was beginning to find his voice against Maqoma. ‘Yet if she herself is stricken also, and yields to a wrong man who leaves after deflowering her, or worse still, she gets pregnant, then her life is ruined. All of a sudden she’s cursed?’

  ‘Well … the times are different now.’ That seemed to settle it for Maqoma, who quickly recovered his jovial mood. ‘I was enchanted by Katye’s coyness. I said: “This is she who must rule my mind.”’

  ‘Every decent man must have a woman to lord it over him,’ sighed Phila.

  ‘She was startled by my appearing out of nowhere; she nearly jumped out of her skin. The girls must have thought they were alone. “Who are you, dirty voyeur?” she asked with an irritated look. “Oh no, I’m no voyeur,” I corrected her. “I’m the chief around these lands.” Then I mumbled something like, “Yet what does that avail me if I fail to move your heart?”’

  ‘Not really the stuff that would make her want to meet you by the river, was it?’

  ‘You’re telling me! She gave a sarcastic answer. “Oh well, if that’s so, I’m chieftess around these lands. Shall we go to our royal abode, your highness?” But in fact I missed the sarcasm, and took her for earnest.’

  ‘Oh, Maqoma!’ Phila covered his eyes with the hand.

  ‘I foolishly asked if I should send my people to introduce me to her home. She became more defiant. “Get away from me, you dirty voyeur. If I catch you doing this again, I shall report you to the elders.” That was when I understood she still did not believe me. I looked around for something with which to convince her, but my entire royal regalia had been left in the fields, under the apricot tree. I tried harder to convince her, to no avail. Luckily, I had a leopard tooth around my neck and she recognised it. Only chiefs were allowed to wear leopardskins and jewellery in our tribe then. Her tone immediately changed, and she carried herself in a far more respectful manner, which disappointed me a little. I liked her initial boldness more. The burden of chieftainship is that people can never be themselves around you. You never really know what they feel. “You’re cruel, my chief, in your fondness,” she said, only now in a shy voice. “How can you take notice of a low-born like me? There can never be anything between us. Our tribal decorum would have none of that.” A seductive tease accompanied her voice and feigned smile.’ Maqoma paused and his face grew sad. ‘To think I might not live to see that smile again,’ he said. ‘Cruel is the fate of mortal man.

  ‘On our wedding day Katye spread a paillasse bed on the floor for me to share. I spread the skirt of my kaross over her and knew her. We took undemanding pleasure of each other. Her delighting my senses made no demands on me, which was why she was my favourite wife.’

  ‘And how did Katye feel about you marrying other women? You only mention her in regard to yourself and not as her own individual.’

  ‘I was already married when I met her, married to two wives, and I took more after her.’

  ‘More like four more. That’s a strange way of demonstrating your fidelity to your true love.’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand it. It was something that was demanded by our times.’

  ‘And pretty convenient for your chivalry also, I suppose.’

  ‘Katye wanted nothing from me but love, not even to shine in my presence. She was kind, forgiving and dependable; things that make a person beautiful in my eyes.’

  ‘And to her you were …?’

  ‘For me habit usually dulls appetite in sexual matters, but not when it came to Katye. Our lovemaking …’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see her side of the story one day.’

  ‘When we were in the fields I couldn’t wait to see her appear, against the beauty of our land, bringing me food and refreshments.’

  ‘Please, man, let’s not go to agriculture again. Life is too short.’

  ‘Often, in order to stay longer with me in the fields, she’d prepare the food the day before and leave with us in the morning. She’d busy herself hoeing and digging holes until noon. Then I’d put it to her. “Katye, you’re a princess now; it is unbecoming for you to be hoeing fields and digging furrows.” To which, suppressing a smile, she would retort: “Maqoma, you are a prince; it is unbecoming for you to be tilling and planting fields. And grown men are forbidden to touch a broom … so what were you doing this morning in the courts of our house?” With that we’d both laugh a laugh of love. Then she’d come closer to me under the apricot tree and softly ask, “Do you love me, Maqoma? I mean, do you really love me? Would you carve my name on the tree?” She made her lips into a flower blossom. And I would answer: “Pull me by the ears and give me a handle kiss.” That kiss pressed to the depths of my soul.

  ‘Then she’d update me about what was happening around the house; how my other wives were cruel to her because she was my favourite. They disliked her more because she was KhoiKhoi. She would tell me ancient stories of their praying mantis gods her people told around the fire. She was the best company to travel long roads with; her resourcefulness for water and root bulb foods was amazing. And then she’d sing and laugh in a hypnotic voice, accusing herself of having no counsellor. She lit my fire. That woman lit the fire of lo
ve in me. When they allowed me to bring one wife with me during my first incarceration on the island I chose her.’

  ‘I’m glad you at least had a taste of that.’

  ‘“If you loved me, Maqoma, you’d take me far away from here, to where only you and I exist under Qamata’s sky. And I’d bear you warriors to defend your old age.” That was something she liked to say after our lovemaking. All my women had this desire of taking me away from the violence of my life. The only blemish in our love was her mother, who opposed our marriage from the start – with uncanny precision of maternal instinct, I must admit.’

  ‘Aren’t all mothers-in-law like that?’

  ‘She refused us her blessing, saying to Katye, “I do not understand why you want to entangle your life with a doomed man. What’s your obsession with this Maqoma? He carries trouble.” In retrospect, I respect her insight, even if I still don’t agree with it. She must have seen how my future would be; that my life would be buried in atrocities. Luckily, the more she objected the stronger Katye’s love grew for me. “My love for him overflows to the rest of my life. I would die for him.” That was what she said. And she did.

  ‘Awu! Isithandwa sam. Every day I thought about her, my love, and my heart throbbed. They’ll be blowing shrill blasts when we meet again. They’ll be carrying sounds through the veld, rushing out and furiously blasting and drumming when I fall into her arms. Then my eyes will only be for her, my eternal desire.’

  ‘Come on, man, let’s not be too sentimental now. Besides, aren’t you both dead? Haven’t you again met somehow?’

  ‘Not yet. I must still finish with you. Perhaps now you’ll understand why I need to get done with this assignment, so I may move along.’

  ‘Hey, don’t let me keep you from your true love, man. You can leave me. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘The ultimate powers that bring me here do not think so. I must linger a little while to finish my assignment.’

  ‘What is it you are supposed to do with me, really? You still haven’t given me a satisfactory answer.’

  ‘Tell you my life story so as to dissuade you from …’ Maqoma fell silent.

  ‘More like One Hundred and One Stories then,’ Phila sighed, ‘only here the night lasts a year?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘What happened to Katye?’

  ‘What else? She ended up with the white man’s iron in her bowels.’

  Maqoma kept quiet for an uncomfortably long time.

  ‘Okay, we don’t have to talk about that,’ said Phila, although he wanted to hear more.

  ‘They lied, those cowards. They said they could not distinguish in the bush between warriors and women. Meantime shooting women and children was their sport and policy whenever the scales of war tilted against them. They said they wanted to kill the brood of vipers that replenished our guerrilla warriors. They said, “Kaffirs breed like rats; we must cut the numbers of their brood.”

  ‘When my Katye was cut off from this life, so young as to have given me only one son, a crown was taken from my head. I lost my reason to live. She left me lost in the prison halls of fate. The son we bore together was doomed also to die of the white man’s iron.’

  ‘Hey, look, man, I’m sorry about your wife and all. Don’t cry, okay.’

  ‘That’s all right. It was a long time ago, although the wound still festers. After that the rumour was that I too had been killed during that raid. In fact it was my comrade, T’Zebe, whom I had assigned to protect my family with his life, who was killed. But the rumour served my guerrilla purposes well. I raved and raged like a wounded buffalo, killing every breathing white thing in my path. That’s how they got to name me the “cacodemon”. It was then that I realised clearly that we would have to fight the land issue with white people to the grave. I lost all hope for peaceful resolutions with the death of my Katye. I also lost my will to live. I became careless with my life, which other people interpreted as bravery.’

  Maqoma then disappeared from Phila’s eyes and ears.

  Feeling a little guilty, Phila went the next day to the library to do some research – and to return library books he’d taken out – to find out if there was any mention of Katye among the British official records of the time, or from the many journals written by officials, soldiers and missionaries. He found what he was looking for in the writings of Colonel Lennox Stretch, by far the most amiable British official of the era towards the Xhosas. He wrote that Maqoma’s wife fell when the colonial parties were combing the lower parts of the Amathole mountains looking for Xhosa warrior fighters. Apparently their patrols were cornered near Burnshill with no proper covering, so they decided to shoot indiscriminately at every moving thing. Describing what he saw when he came to the spot after the shooting, Stretch wrote:

  I was completely horrified to behold a most interesting female Caffre, one of Maqoma’s wives, mortally wounded and one of the attendants slightly wounded. The expression of fear and pain exhibited in the countenance of the former was so truly distressing that I felt ashamed of being in the command. The [cannon] ball had passed through the fleshy part of the stomach and broken the thighbone. When I arrived at the spot I found a female occupied in stopping the blood and soothing the cries of the infant that would soon be motherless. It was too much for me, and as I could render no assistance I hurried from the melancholy scene lamenting I was ever employed on such a duty.

  Phila bought a take-out coffee from a kiosk around the corner from the library. He drank it, too quickly, sitting on a public bench in the City Square, admiring one last time the clean Edwardian architectural lines of the municipal building, the flying Georgian buttress roof of the Main City Library he often frequented. The coffee scalded his lips and he cursed as he spilt some of the liquid on his sleeve. There was a biting wind this afternoon, so cold that it stung his eyes.

  Wagons and Moods

  THE USUAL WHIFF OF STALE AIR FROM THE South African Breweries factory was strongest on Thursday evenings and Friday mornings in kwaMagxaki, the place on the hill Phila still called home, even as he was planning to leave it behind. This was a Friday morning. The warm porridge air suffused the house when he opened the window. Beyond the factory buildings the metro train raced the river line towards Despatch and Uitenhage.

  After taking a shower he walked to the bus stop, taking the same route he had walked almost every weekday for close to a decade: past the community centre, past the yard with the well-fed Rhodesian ridgeback that always came crashing the fence to bark at him. Today was no different. The dog’s owner, a retired coloured man, who spent his mornings polishing his Hyundai sedan (“because my wife gets cranky in the morning”), came strolling to the fence to chat to Phila, gently airing the dust cloth as he came. It always made Phila panic that he was going to miss the bus. Meanwhile the dog kept up its barking frenzy, prompting the owner to shout “Voetsek!” so that they might hear themselves talk. Then came the subsequent jog to the bus stop when Phila heard its rumbling approach, and the worry when he sat down in his seat and realised he had never introduced himself to the man he chatted to almost every weekday morning and now it was probably too late. And the realisation that he procrastinated too much frustrated him further.

  Phila sat quietly on the bus, listening to the passengers talking around him. Their concerns seemed mostly to be about a soccer match between the giant clubs Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. He fought the urge to stand up and survey the faces he knew he’d probably never see again. His sentimentality took him by surprise. From his window seat he watched in motion the difficult black lives doing hand-washing, in amazing high spirits, outside the corrugated-iron structures that were their homes. At some stage, almost giving in, he half stood by impulsion of Sturm und Drang, storm and urge, to say something. He wanted, somehow, to indicate that he was part of the toiling masses, perhaps even starve the chameleon inside tugging to break loose from them. Noticing the probing glance from the mama seated across from him, he sat down, in shame an
d silence. He thought of something Maqoma had said regarding the need to leave the places we love in order to train the torch of love on them.

  Upon reaching the city he didn’t feel like going anywhere else except the beach, and was tired of the bus so he walked the three kilometres or so across Humewood to Summerstrand, which helped clear his head. At King’s Beach he strolled past the screaming seagulls, those primary guardians of the sea. The carnival atmosphere was absent since it was before noon in the middle of the week. It pained him to see the gulls hustle dust-bins, like scavengers, competing with homeless people for thrown-away food. The pavement smelled of pigeon feed.