‘He is one-eyed now, but at least he is still alive.’
‘He was fortunate that the white man who drove the train saved him. Other people are not that fortunate.’
Toloki tells her of another train incident, which also happened last week, where the victim was not as fortunate as this resident. A young man and his wife were in the train. She was holding their one-day-old baby. They had come from the hospital where the wife had just given birth the previous night. Three gangsters walked into the carriage and demanded that the woman give her baby to her husband and follow them. These were not migrants from hostels this time, but the very youths who live with us in the townships and in the settlements. The children we gave birth to, who have now turned against the community, and have established careers of rape and robbery.
The couple begged and pleaded. They explained that the woman had just given birth, and the baby was only a few hours old. But the gangsters showed no mercy. They insisted that the woman come with them. And she did. Not a single one of the other passengers lifted a finger to help. The next day, she was found dead in the veld. The gangsters had taken turns raping her, and had then slit her throat. Toloki knew her story because he had mourned at her funeral.
Toloki and Noria walk quietly until they reach the taxi rank. Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears.
‘Mothers lose their babies, Toloki, and babies lose their mothers.’
‘Death lives with us everyday. Indeed our ways of dying are our ways of living. Or should I say our ways of living are our ways of dying?’
‘It works both ways. Good-bye, Toloki.’
‘Good-bye, Noria.’
‘Just one more thing: please take a bath. Just because your profession involves death, it doesn’t mean that you need to smell like a dead rat.’
Toloki laughs good-naturedly, and promises that before he visits her again, he will take a shower at the beach. He boards the taxi with happy thoughts, and waves to Noria as it drives away.
5
Toloki wakes up early in the morning, and goes to the beach. He hopes that the gawpers will not have arrived yet, since beaches normally get crowded in the afternoons on Saturdays. He is whistling to himself, and from time to time he breaks into a jig of exhilaration. A gust of wind blows his topper away. He runs after it, performing a nifty cart-wheel that is actualised only in his imagination. He laughs aloud, until tears stream down his cheeks.
The dockworkers, the sailors and their prostitutes think that he has finally snapped. They have never seen him in this effervescent mood before. The Toloki they have known over the years has always been an incarnation of gloom and dignity.
At the beach he goes straight to the change-room, takes his clothes off, and remains in green briefs that have holes on them. Then he goes to the open showers, and scrubs his body with a stone, while the cool water slides down his back. Soon a crowd gathers around him, and they foolishly snicker and chortle. He had forgotten that during the holiday season, especially between Christmas and New Year, the beaches are always infested with rich tourists from the inland provinces. Even though he came especially early in order to avoid spectators while performing his ablutions, you really can’t beat these inland spoilers. They seem to practically live on the beach.
A policeman, one of the idlers known as the beach patrol, comes and rudely tells him to clear off the beach.
‘Why? What wrong have I done?’
‘You are indecently dressed.’
‘What about all these other people?’
‘They are wearing bathing costumes, not underpants.’
‘Well, mine is a bathing costume too. Who decides what is a bathing costume and what is not? Where is it written that this is not a bathing costume?’
‘I don’t care. When I come back, I don’t want to find you here.’
He strolls away. Toloki takes his time to wash himself. He never worries about these pompous officials who like to impress the inland riff-raff by staging confrontations with him. When he finishes, he sprawls his pudgy body on the sand, and lets the morning sun dry it. Then he splashes his whole body with perfume. He is going to a funeral today. When he got home last night, there was a note on his trolley asking him to mourn at a mass funeral of five people who had died in an orgy of violence. The funeral service is due to start at about eleven. He decides to go and see Noria first, before proceeding to the cemetery.
Back in the city, he goes to furniture stores and gets as many catalogues as he can carry. He tells the salespeople that there are some customers from his village who would like to buy furniture. They would like to see the pictures first before they come to the stores to buy furniture. Of course, the salespeople don’t believe him. But they don’t see any harm in giving him the catalogues, which are free in any case. Then he goes to a newspaper stall, and negotiates with the owner to buy ten back issues of Home and Garden magazine. He buys them at only ten percent of the cover price.
He walks towards the taxi rank, and furtively picks some of the flowers that grow along the sidewalks. Then he proceeds to the pastry shop across from the taxi rank. There he buys a variety of cakes, including his favourite Swiss roll. He will buy green onions from the women who sell vegetables at a street corner just outside the pastry shop.
He gets into a taxi that will take him to the squatter camp — no, to the informal settlement. And no one turns their back on him, nor do they cover their noses. He is very pleased that he was able to get roses this time. Their scent fills the whole taxi. Noria will love these. Indeed flowers become her.
He learnt a lot about Noria yesterday. He had not really been aware of the trials she had experienced. All he knew was what had been said about her in the village — that she was just a stuck-up bitch who was spoilt. For him, she had acquired the looming stature of a wicked woman who had destroyed his father.
It is true that Noria was responsible for Jwara’s downfall, and his ultimate demise. As she grew older, she developed other interests, and on many occasions failed to honour her appointments with him. Sometimes she would tell her parents that she was going to sing for Jwara. Instead, Toloki now knows, she went to charm taxi boys. Jwara’s obsession could not be quenched, so he sunk deeper and deeper into depression. He could not create without Noria. Yet his dreams did not give him any respite. The strange creatures continued to visit him in his sleep, and to demand that they be recreated the next day in the form of figurines.
Often he sat in his workshop, waiting for Noria. Noria would not come. We believed that she had become too proud. Jwara sent her messages, promising her the world. The world, however, meant sweets and chocolates. Taxi boys had much more imaginative offerings.
Sometimes she went, and sang for Jwara. Then he happily created his figurines. He would come to life, be happy with the rest of his family, and treat them with love and respect. Even after Noria had gone home, and he had closed the workshop for the night, he would be lighthearted and make jokes with Toloki and with his mother. Since this was a very unnatural condition, Toloki would laugh nervously, and his mother would only scowl. Jwara would also buy delicacies such as canned corned beef and biscuits, and give these to his family. Toloki’s mother would sneer mockingly, ‘Ha! I can see that that stuck-up bitch Noria has given you pleasure today!’
When Noria did not come, however, Jwara became morose, and moody, and irritable. He would lose his temper for no reason at all, and slap Toloki or his mother. Toloki wished that Noria could come every day so that there would be peace and happiness in the home. He hated her when she did not come, as this inflicted pain on his family.