Free Little Suns by Zakes Mda Page B

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