‘But the poor man who lost his manhood had nothing to do with the scam.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘He was just a simple labourer. A very junior person. Only the drivers and the foremen are involved in this business. Even I, who have worked there for so many years, cannot just instruct labourers to load bags of maize onto a truck.’
‘So is there nothing he can do now? Can’t he go to the law?’
‘Whose law? Was I not just telling you that it was the law that rendered him manless? At least in the cities we hear that they are beginning to form unions that will fight for the rights of the workers. Such ideas haven’t reached us here yet.’
Toloki was convinced by his new friends to keep his job, and make his home in that country town. These companions were like family to him. He envied the cosy relationship that his new friend enjoyed with his father, and wanted to be a part of it. They were indeed more like mates, and shared everything. Theirs was the closeness of saliva to the tongue.
The father did part-time gardening jobs in a suburb where white people lived. Sometimes he came with leftovers from the tables of his masters, and the three of them sat in front of the shack, and stuffed themselves with delicacies whose names they did not even know. They laughed and smoked and drank beer and danced to their own crazy off-tune songs. Toloki knew he could be happy there. For the first time in his life, he was treated like a man — even though he was only eighteen. When he shared stories of his village, people listened with genuine interest. No one laughed at his face. People were concerned with the more urgent problems of living, and with the business of creating their own happiness in the midst of penury.
One day Toloki went to visit his friends as usual. He was surprised to see a group of people standing outside the shack. Some women were weeping softly, others were wailing. He looked for the old man, and found him being comforted by other men behind the shack.
‘They have killed your friend, Toloki.’
‘But I saw him this morning.’
‘I have just come from the hospital. He died this afternoon.’
Toloki heard how his friend was burnt to death in a deadly game he played with a white colleague. During their lunch break this white colleague sent him to fetch a gallon of petrol from the mill’s petrol depot. When he came back with the petrol he found a black labourer, who was known as the white man’s crony, on the floor, struggling to free himself from his white friend who had his knee on his chest. The crony later said, ‘I do not know exactly how it happened, but I remember kicking the container and the man was doused with petrol all over.’ As he was trying to clean his face with a piece of cloth, the white colleague jokingly said that he was going to burn him. He then struck a match and threw it at him.
The crony continued, ‘The fire was so big that I was frightened. I went around screaming for help. But by the time they put out the flames and took him to hospital, it was too late. He was badly burnt.’ The crony insisted that his white friend was playing. He had played such fire tricks on other workers before, including on him only the previous month. ‘The same white man doused me with petrol and set me alight last month. I sustained burns, but I healed after a while. Although he is a big white baas, he is very friendly and likes to play with black labourers.’
However the man’s father refused to believe that it was all a game. He said that before his son died, he had told him that the white man hated him because he was doing so well in his job. He had been a labourer for many years, serving the company with honesty and dedication, and had recently been tipped for a more senior position. The white man had conspired with the crony to kill him. They were motivated by jealousy. ‘I cannot believe the many stories that are told, but I believe what my son told me,’ the old man said. ‘Why did the white man who burnt my son laugh at him when he was in flames? Why did he refuse to help him?’ But the crony was adamant that the white colleague was merely laughing because it was a game. To him the flames were a joke. When the man screamed and ran around in pain, he thought he was dancing.
Toloki went to his friend’s funeral, and solemnly listened to the Nurse explain how this our brother died. He heard of how the people led the life of birds, in fear that they would not see the next day. He heard other funeral orators talk of the wars of freedom that were beginning to take root in the cities, wars that were necessary even in that small town.
That night Toloki took his boots and hung them on his shoulders, and walked the road. He said he would not work at a place where the masters played such funless games with their servants. But first he went to say goodbye to the old man, and to pay back the money with which his deceased friend had bought him fat cakes and milk. The old man insisted that he kept the money, and wanted to give him more for provision, but Toloki said, ‘Your need is greater than mine, father. I was paid only two days ago, so I still have some money.’
Toloki spent many days on the road. He walked through semi-arid lands that stretched for many miles, where the boers farmed ostriches and prickly pears. When he ran out of money, he took part-time jobs with farmers. At some places, he joined workers to harvest the prickly pears. At others, he worked for merchants who sold coal on horse carts, and who paid him only in food, after he had loaded and unloaded bags and bags of coal.
Deaths and funerals continued to dog his way throughout. For instance, in one village he found the whole community in mourning. The previous week, in a moment of mass rage, the villagers had set upon a group of ten men, beat them up, stabbed them with knives, hurled them into a shack, and set it alight. Then they had danced around the burning shack, singing and chanting about their victory over these thugs, who had been terrorizing the community for a long time. It seemed these bandits, who were roasted in a funeral pyre, had thrived on raping maidens, and robbing and murdering defenceless community members. The police were unable to take any action against these gangsters, so the members of the community had come together, and had decided to serve their own blend of justice. According to a journalist who wrote about the incident ‘it was as if the killing had, in a mind-blowing instant, amputated a foul and festering limb from the soul of the community.’ When Toloki got there, all the villagers were numbed by their actions. They had become prosecutors, judges and executioners. But every one of them knew that the village would forever be enshrouded by the smell of burning flesh. The community would never be the same again, and for the rest of their lives, its people would walk in a daze.
Finally, three months after leaving his village, Toloki arrived in the city.
4
The sun rises on Noria’s shack. All the work has been completed, and the structure is a collage in bright sunny colours. And of bits of iron sheets, some of which shimmer in the morning rays, while others are rust-laden. It would certainly be at home in any museum of modern art. Toloki and Noria stand back, and gaze admiringly at it. First they smile, then they giggle, and finally they burst out laughing. Sudden elation overwhelms Toloki. Noria’s laughter is surely regaining its old potency.
‘I did not know that our hands were capable of such creation.’
‘I did, Toloki. I did. You have always been good at creating beautiful things with your hands.’
‘I don’t believe you, Noria. You are only saying this to be nice. You know what they thought of me in the village.’
‘Don’t you remember the April calendar?’
‘The what?’
‘It is still there, Toloki. The calendar with the picture you made.’