‘I do not have any parents.’
‘You mean you sprung from a stone?’
‘I only have one old grandmother who brought me up. I did not mean to disrespect you, sir. I was afraid, sir, for we did you wrong. I wanted to work first, and have money, and come to make peace with you when I had lobola to pay.’
‘Are you now inventing your own customs? If you knew that you were a pauper who ate lice, why did you do dirty things with my daughter?’
That Mountain Woman was more concerned with Noria’s ravaged appearance. She uttered a few choice descriptive phrases. These pertained mostly to Napu’s mother, and to her private parts. She did not forget to use the usual label that she stuck on people she did not like: that they were products of bungled abortions. Napu was taken aback, for in all his life he had never come across such stingingly colourful language. He immediately decided that he hated That Mountain Woman with all his heart.
‘Look what this son of a viper has done to my baby!’
‘It is not his fault, mother. I went with him because I loved him.’
‘My own daughter wearing a donkey blanket! My daughter whose father has so many cattle he can buy all the blankets in the world! My daughter whose mother grinds and mixes medicines that can heal all humanity!’
We thought Napu would leave with his tail between his legs. But we were wrong. He became stubborn and defiant. He told them that he was not at all intimidated by That Mountain Woman, even though he was sorry that he did not go through the proper customary channels to marry their daughter. But he could see that even if he had done the right thing, Noria’s parents would never have sanctioned the marriage since they had clearly shown themselves to be such snobs. Unfortunately there was nothing that they could do about it, since he, Napu, son of a nobody, had married their daughter in front of the law. Xesibe protested that his objection to the whole sorry business had nothing to do with Napu’s pedigree, but had everything to do with the fact that he had disrespected them by taking their daughter without due process of custom and tradition. After all, he himself did not begin life as a wealthy man. He had been as poor as Napu, but had worked hard herding other people’s animals and cultivating the land, until he accumulated his own wealth. That Mountain Woman screeched indignantly, ‘Why are you on the defensive, Father of Noria? Why should we explain ourselves to this upstart? And why do you allow him to talk to me like this? Are you a man or just something that someone left behind when they squatted in the donga?’
Napu laughed mockingly in her face, and left. Xesibe was secretly pleased that there was at last someone who could stand up to his caustic wife.
Noria gave birth to a healthy baby boy after a pregnancy of fifteen months, when we had long forgotten that she was pregnant, as after a while we took her protruding stomach to be the natural order of things. In any case, we saw very little of her during that time. She stayed home and did not venture out to meet any of us at the well where we drew our water, or on the river-banks where we did our washing, or in the fields where we collected wild spinach. That Mountain Woman was very happy when the baby was finally born, and she attributed the smooth labour to her powerful medicines. She was particularly pleased with the baby’s beautiful features. She claimed that he took after her own family. Despite the fact that her mother had forbidden Noria to ever contact Napu again, she sent a secret message to her husband, informing him of the birth of their son.
The next day Napu swaggered into Xesibe’s homestead. Xesibe was genuinely pleased to see him, but That Mountain Woman wanted to know what the crude upstart wanted in her house.
‘I have come to see my son.’
‘When did you give birth to a son?’
‘My wife gave birth to a son, and I have come to give him a name.’
An argument ensued. Napu had a nip of brandy in his pocket, and he kept on taking a sip from it in a very ostentatious manner. That Mountain Woman began raging in the language of the mountain people. Whenever she was extremely angry, she spoke in the language of the mountain people, and no one in the village could understand her. But it seemed that Napu was versed in this language, for he answered back. Maybe he was a mountain person too. They exchanged heated words for a long time, until That Mountain Woman got tired and broke out in our language again.
‘No grandson of mine shall be named after your people.’
‘He is my son, and I have decided to name him Vutha, after my own father whom I never knew!’
‘My grandson shall not be dogged by misfortune just because you want to give him a stupid name that means a burning fire! Don’t you know that the meanings of names are fulfilled?’
Napu insisted that his son would be called Vutha. From time to time he took a swig from his bottle, which we suspected gave him the courage to duel so bravely with That Mountain Woman. She meanwhile insisted that her grandson would be called Jealous Down, in order to spite those people who had laughed at her.
‘It’s an English name! My son will not have an English name!’
‘That’s what one would expect from an uncultured lizard like you. For your information, Jealous Down is a beautiful name. It means that the neighbours who were laughing at Noria’s misfortune are now jealous because she has the most beautiful baby boy in all the village. And don’t you dare imagine that you are responsible for that beauty. It comes from my side of the family!’
‘Jealous Down! It does not even come from the Bible. If at least it came from the Bible, I would accept it as his church name.’
‘Who told you that it does not come from the Bible? Have you read the whole Bible? Do you want to tell me that you know all the names that are in the Bible?’
The result was that Napu continued to call his son Vutha, That Mountain Woman continued to call her grandson Jealous Down, and Xesibe thought the best name would be Mistake, and proceeded to use that name at all times.
After six months, when the baby was bouncing with good health, Noria went back to live with Napu in their brickyard shack in town. Of course That Mountain Woman was against the move, but Noria was as headstrong as her mother.
‘If you must go, then you are leaving Jealous Down here.’
‘Oh no, I am taking Vutha with me, mother. He is my child.’
‘Yes, she must take Mistake with her, Mother of Noria.’
‘And who asked for your opinion, Father of Noria?’
For a while Noria lived happily with her husband. But then she discovered that he was having an affair with a neighbour. When Napu came back from work she confronted him, and they fought bitterly. She took Vutha and went back home. That Mountain Woman welcomed her back with open arms, but Xesibe said she must work things out with her husband, and must go back to build her family. He had a private heart-to-heart talk with his daughter while his wife was busy with her patients in her consulting room. He told her that he did not want a daughter who would be deemed a failure. Noria, however, said she would only go back if Napu came and apologised, and promised never to make her the object of disgrace and ridicule again. She also voiced other complaints against her husband, most of which she had been keeping to herself, in the hope that things would change for the better. The major one was that Napu was a koata, which meant that he was uncivilised and uncultured. As a result, she was finding it increasingly difficult to have anything to talk about with him.
This last complaint did not receive Xesibe’s sympathy. After all, he had been called a koata for years by his wife. She ridiculed the brown blanket that he wore at all times, and said that civilised and cultured men wore jackets like the clerks at the general dealer’s store. Or like the teachers at the primary school. ‘But you, Father of Noria, are a koata who sleeps with his boots on!’ At times, she went on to say that all his wealth was wasted on a vulgar man like him.