Themba

2. At night by the river

CHAPTER 2Ebuzuku ngasemlanjeni

At night by the river

Where I come from it’s just as lively at night-time as it is in the day. When the animals of the day – including humans – go to sleep, the animals of the night take over. Many beasts of prey hunt at night. And at certain hours of the night, there are spirits who can draw such enormous power from the darkness that they can easily overwhelm you, even if you don’t believe in them. Yes, even those people who think of themselves as rational and sensible during the daytime.

Because night falls swiftly there. Almost without any transition the flame-red orb of the sun sinks into the hills, turning the clouds a fiery orange. Then a pitch black darkness descends, until gradually, the cold and distant light of the moon makes all the shadows dance.

The lions and elephants no longer roam the hills and valleys of Qunu, but there are still lynxes and jackals that raid the chicken coops at night, making off with a goose or a chicken. Sometimes, from a strong branch in a tree, you can see the huge eyes of giant owls, glowing as they slowly open and close. Swarms of bats dart silently backwards and forwards hunting for mosquitoes and other small insects. All along the river the chorus of frogs and toads rises, swelling to a crescendo during the course of the evening, until it suddenly falls silent, as though directed by the baton of an invisible conductor.

It was on a night like this, with Mama already fast asleep after a hard day’s work in the mealie field, that Nomtha and I lay wide awake trying to explain the noises of the night to each other. I wasn’t more than twelve years old at the time and Nomtha must have been about ten.

“The scratching on the roof is a gecko,” she says quietly so as not to wake Mama.

“I think it’s two of them, fighting,” I venture.

“Could well be!” She agrees enthusiastically and tries to make out something above us. Through the tiny window of the small round hut which is home to the three of us, moonlight shimmers on the single photograph we have of Father. My mother always keeps it by her pillow in a shiny metal frame that she polishes regularly.

All of a sudden, we hear a distinct knocking on the mud wall outside, right next to the wooden door. The door has been rickety for a long time, hanging loosely on its hinges, so that even a mild breeze can set it creaking. But this hollow knocking sound is something new. It’s really spooky – weird, I can’t explain it. It seems to come from right inside the dried clay bricks, but also from somewhere far away, and it sounds like a giant fist is trying to make the walls tremble.

Nomtha, however, has already got up and is pulling me along with her. “Yiza – come on Themba, it’s probably a ghost we have to set free!”

Admittedly, I’m curious too to find out what’s causing this knocking sound, but the idea of liberating a ghost does not appeal at all: “And what do we do with him when we have freed him?”

Typically, Nomtha has an answer: “Surely the ghost can decide that for himself …”

I know Nomtha well enough to realise that she won’t let it go. As Mama is fast asleep, I move quietly and grab the iron poker we use to stoke the fire. It’s still warm from the cooking of the evening meal. I creep on tiptoe towards the door, with Nomtha right behind me; we hold our breath as we hear it again. There it is, the deep, hollow sound of a fist knocking, or is it the hoof of a huge animal?

Suddenly, there is silence. Has the ghost spotted us? Is it waiting for us to open the door, to drag us off to the spirit world? But Nomtha is still on a rescue mission, “Don’t give him a fright with that fire poker… come on, open the door so that we can see what this knocking is all about!”

This girl really isn’t afraid of anything. Carefully, I push back the wood that we use to bar the door from the inside at night. At the same time as pulling the door open slowly with my left hand and lifting it slightly to stop it creaking, I raise the poker in my right hand… I can feel Nomtha’s warm breath on my back as we both peer round the corner towards where we heard the knocking so clearly only seconds ago.

“Ubona ntoni – what do you see?” Nomtha whispers excitedly. To her this is just a great adventure.

“Andiboni nto – I don’t see anything,” I answer softly, stepping aside to let her see for herself.

But she grips my back with both hands and calls in a barely subdued voice: “Phaya, phaya, - that’s where you must look!” Her thin arm points in the direction of the path that leads down to the river. Then I catch sight of what has fascinated her: Small lights seem to be floating up and down above the path and moving slowly towards the river. In the moonlit shadow of the large trees we can just make out the last few figures in a dark and silent procession. They are going down to the banks of the river in slow, rhythmical movements that match the knocking sounds we have heard.

“Are they ghosts?” Nomtha whispers into my ear. She’s not prepared to give up her idea of liberating a ghost – at least not without a struggle.

“Those are sangomas – they’re probably having a sacred meeting at the river.”

As her big brother, I feel relieved that at last I have an explanation for something. I remember my mother had once taken me to a meeting of the traditional healers of Qunu. It was when they had inaugurated the first stone house of the headman at Gonya, a larger settlement nearby. The ceremony had gone on for most of the night and it involved slaughtering several sheep and a cow as well as lighting dozens of candles, which I thought were very beautiful.

And then it comes back to me in a rush, that deep vibrating sound made by their wide-bellied drums. Before I can tell Nomtha about that, we hear it again, this time in the far distance. The healers have arrived at the river and, after descending to the bank, have resumed beating their drums.

“The ghosts!” Nomtha cries out so loudly that we cast a worried look back towards Mama’s bed. In the moonlight that’s glancing through the open door, we can clearly see our mother tossing and turning in her bed, but she hasn’t woken yet.

Without waiting, Nomtha rushes ahead before turning round and waving impatiently to me: “Vala ucango – close the door … come on!” Then she turns back and follows in the same direction as the procession of sangomas.

I know that children are not allowed at certain sacred rituals and we are definitely not allowed to leave the hut at night and rush down to the river without Mama’s permission. But I can’t just leave Nomtha to go off alone, can I? So I run after her, calling softly: “Yima, Nomtha - stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

I can’t run too fast in the dark and don’t see the branches that slap me in the face, though they miss Nomtha, who is at least a head shorter than I am. Finally, by the time I catch up with her, breathless, and grab her arm, we have practically arrived at the river. The drumming has stopped again and all the figures have arranged themselves in a semi-circle around one of the old women. We somehow manage to hide behind a thick bush so the adults don’t spot us. In the long silence that follows, I don’t dare so much as whisper to Nomtha. Both of us gaze in fascination at the spectacle before us.

The burning candles have now been arranged in a circle in the middle of the gathering. They cast a ghostly light on the blanketclad figures of the healers and on their faces, some of which have been smeared with white paint. From a large bucket, the old woman in the centre scoops a white liquid that she empties into bottles that are passed around. When everyone has taken a sip from a bottle, the remainder is poured into the river with prayerlike incantations. Only then does the old woman take one of the smaller drums and begin to beat out a new rhythm with a stick, to emphasise her words.

After two or three repetitions I can understand what she’s chanting and the question she is asking of the gathering: “Zililela ntoni izinyanya?” But Nomtha can’t wait to know and asks in a hushed voice: “What does the woman want from them?”

I whisper back: ‘She asks why the spirits are weeping.”

“What?” For the first time Nomtha’s knowledge of ghosts has let her down.

But then the woman explains in no uncertain terms why the spirits are sad. As if giving a sermon, she calls out: “The hearts of the spirits are heavy because so many young men are leaving us …”

The gathering responds in a chorus: “Siyavuma – we agree!”

“So many fathers and brothers have gone from us, that is why the spirits are sad …” she continues her lament.

“Siyavuma!”

“So many children have to grow up without fathers and the families are broken … that is why the spirits weep!”

“Siyavuma!”

Then she relates how, increasingly, the fathers return from afar bearing a disease, the mysterious sickness ugawulayo, which is so powerful that it can fell trees and against which all cures are useless. Sometimes the fathers don’t even come home any more. As I watch the old woman carry out her ritual, spellbound, I notice that Nomtha has started to cry. Her small body gradually stops shuddering but still the tears run down her face. “Are you frightened?” I whisper.

She just shakes her head silently and signals that she wants to go home. We leave the gathering of sangomas, unnoticed, creep back to the path and from there run home in a few minutes. As we reach the vegetable garden in front of our home, we see that the old wooden door is standing wide open.

“Where in heaven’s name are you two coming from in the middle of the night?” Mama calls out, jumping up from the chair that she had placed to be able to see down the path.

“Siyaphila, Mama – we are OK,” I try to calm her. But she has already noticed that Nomtha has been crying and folds her comfortingly into her arms.

“What is it, my little one?” Her voice has already lost its irritation, giving way to relief that we are safe.

But Nomtha, who has shown no fear of even the most formidable ghosts, is still sobbing and then finally erupts, “Uphi uThata – where is Father? Why has he never come back to us?”

I feel the change in Mama’s face even before Nomtha notices. The gentleness of her expression gives way to a terrible sorrow. She turns away abruptly and stares at the little photograph in its silver-coloured frame next to her bed. Even though it’s too dark to make out any features, all of us know this picture like no other.

It shows my father, Vuyo, somewhere on a beach, in his early twenties, certainly not much older. He’s wearing a loose pair of long trousers, his feet and torso are bare, his shoulders and arms look strong. He is leaning against a rock, with a radiant look in his eyes, like that of an invincible hero. His right hand is stretched upwards making a salute with a fist. Since the time he vanished, Mama has never spoken his name again.

Even now, on this extraordinary night, we notice the tension that always grips her when anyone asks after him. But tonight she walks the few paces to the bed, picks up the picture with both hands, takes a deep breath and answers Nomtha in a soft voice, “Your father … he is still in my heart. Even though he left us long ago and I don’t even know whether he is still alive.”

It is clear that this time Nomtha wants to know more – as much as I do. Gently, I step closer to my mother, and look at the photograph with her. Eventually, I dare to ask another, hopefully simple question, “Mama, did you take that picture of Father?”

She raises her eyes, gazing through the open door into the night, still without saying a word. From the river, the sounds of drumming are fading into the distance. Apparently the sangomas have moved away to the north. She listens to the far-off drums, as though, perhaps, they’re delivering a message she hasn’t heard before.

Then she turns back to us, speaking fast but in a matter of fact tone: “No, that photo was taken by one of his comrades in the underground movement, about two or three years before we met. At the time, your father was forging identity documents for people in hiding. And this photo was totally idiotic. That beach was reserved for white people, as most beaches were. Not only did your father not care a damn about that sort of thing but he stood there giving the salute of resistance. And to top it all, he had his photo taken doing it…”

Never before has she said so much about our father. She sits back down in the chair, holding the picture in both hands. Nomtha and I crouch in front of her, on the floor, silently. We don’t want to interrupt, in any way, the story she has at last begun to share.

And then she really starts to tell us about our father.