Free The Heart of Redness: A Novel by Zakes Mda Page A

sometimes came across at the crossroads, and then asked someone called Tsiqwa for his guidance and protection.
    Every night the twins shook with fear when they saw rivers of fire raging down the mountains. They knew immediately that this was the path to avoid, for it was the path of the disease.
    “The stars tell me that we must move until the sea stops us,” Qukezwa told them.
    After many weeks the twins reached Qolorha. Twin and Qukezwa established their home in the village of Ngcizele. They were so close to the sea that even as they slept at night they could hear the sound of the waves. Here was plenty of grazing land for Twin’s cattle.
    Twin-Twin and his many wives settled in the small village of KwaFeni a few miles away. Here too were great pastures for his cattle.
    Life was beautiful. But it was not completely free of disease. Sometimes the dastardly lungsickness crept in in the deep of the night, seized a prized ox, and drained it of flesh and blood. By this time, experience had taught the twins a few tricks. They separated the sick ox from the rest of the herd until it died. Then they buried the carcass far away from the village.
    The twins soon saw Mhlakaza again, for it happened that Qolorha was his ancestral home. He had built his single hut near the Gxarha River, and had called an
imbhizo
—a public meeting—of the people of the Qolorha area, including the villages of KwaFeni and Ngcizele, to discuss the wonders that had happened in his homestead.
    Qukezwa knew him at once and whispered to Twin, “Hey, is that not Wilhelm Goliath?”
    “Yes,” shouted Twin in amazement, “it is the gospel man, Wilhelm Goliath!”
    “You dare call me by that name again!” said Mhlakaza angrily. “I am not Wilhelm Goliath. I am Mhlakaza.”
    Twin did not understand what was wrong, for the man used to call himself Wilhelm Goliath, and would have been angry if he had been addressed as Mhlakaza.
    “He is sensitive about being called by that name,” a man standing next to them said.
    He explained to Twin and Qukezwa that when Merriman stopped walking and was confined to the church in Grahamstown, Mhlakaza’s days as a gospel man came to an end. At first the holy man engaged him to teach isiXhosa at a school, and built him a hut in his garden. But he was not a happy man at the holy man’s household. Merriman and his wife treated him like a servant, whereas on the road he had been a gospel man in his own right. He felt that Merriman’s wife didn’t like him. She called him a dreamy sort of fellow. And this convinced him that his enthusiasm for the gospel was not taken seriously by Merriman’s family. So he left and came to live next to his sister’s homesteadnear the Gxarha River. He gave up on the god of the white man, and reverted to the true god of his fathers.
    “I have called you here, my countrymen, because a wonderful thing has happened!” said Mhlakaza, addressing the small group of men and women who had gathered outside his hut. “Three days ago my niece, Nongqawuse, and my sister-in-law, Nombanda, went to the fields to chase away the birds that like to feed on the sorghum.”
    “Indeed that is wonderful,” said Twin-Twin sarcastically. “His children went to scare the birds in the fields, and he has called the whole nation to tell us about it.”
    But Mhlakaza ignored the amateur comedian and continued his speech. He called two young girls to stand in front of the people. “This older one is Nongqawuse,” he said. “She is fifteen years old. I took her as my own daughter after her parents were murdered by British soldiers during the War of Mlanjeni”. This eight-year-old one is Nombanda, my wife’s sister. Now, when these children were in the fields, a wonderful thing happened.”
    “The man has said that already,” said Twin. “Get on with the story. Tell us what happened.”
    “Does he know that we have left our fields and our cattle unattended?” asked Twin-Twin. Others agreed with