Bloodlines (33 page)

“Hello, Stevie,” I would say. “I’m back. I never died—you just imagined that I was dead because it was easier than living with reality.”

“Reality?” you would respond. “My reality is that you’re dead, and I’m proud of the way you died. Would you rather have me live with the fact that you were a terrorist? That you betrayed Dad? Had an affair that was not only illicit but illegal—without thinking what it would do to me if you were caught? Stay dead,” you would say, “it’s easier that way. I’m over my grief. Dad and I will have a good life together. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll find another wife who’ll be a better mother than you ever were.”

I was numb and silent in the truck on the long return drive, and I don’t recall being led through the darkness on Sthembiso’s mule. By the time we reached the homestead and I crawled under the blanket beside Khabazela, I knew that one choice, at least, was no longer mine. You and your father had made it for me.

.

seventeen

MICHAELA

Zululand, 1962

W
hy we went to visit the
sangoma
I still don’t know, but that we would go was never a question. I thought the whole exercise was pointless, but Khabazela was able to understand science, politics and history, and at the same time hold fast to a belief in the most traditional of Zulu practices, without one cancelling out the other. If I had not learned to respect this in him, I had at least learned that the apparent contradiction was not a topic for discussion, and that he would do what his tradition called for, even if it went against his Western half. So I went along, willing to participate in whatever way I was asked.

We left before noon, a few days after I returned from my telephone conversation with Lenny. It was a warm summer day, and there was a haze along the crests. Our path wound around the hills, linking one homestead to the next. The hum of insects traveled with us; butterflies floated from flower to flower, seeming to rise on updrafts of heated air. Big white cow lilies dotted the flanks of the hills, interspersed with the purple, pink and yellow of wildflowers. Occasionally we came upon a gathering of steenbok or impala in the shade of a tree, one lone male watching for danger. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like a foreign object dropped into a strange environment—instead of standing out, I felt as natural a part of the landscape as the grass or the deer. I was comfortable in my skin, at home in the hills, and surprisingly happy. We had not been together for more than a few hours in a long time, and this was an adventure.

We walked until after dark, and when we arrived discovered that Sthembiso had already sent ahead a black goat as payment for our consultation. We were not alone—this
sangoma
had a reputation throughout Zululand, and people came from much further than we had to seek the Shades’ counsel through her. Knowing that there would be other supplicants waiting, and not wanting to parade my presence before them, Sthembiso had arranged for us to stay alone in a small dwelling outside the main homestead. After we had eaten that night, as we sat together on a flat stone beside the fire, Khabazela tried to prepare me for the next day.

“How do you imagine this meeting?” he asked me.

“I expect an old woman in gypsy clothes to tell me that I’ve had many previous lives, and that in one of them I was Cleopatra’s handbag,” I said. “But nothing would surprise me. I suppose there’ll be an old woman throwing bones on the floor, and staring at them. She’ll have snake skins, and grated antelope horn, and foul medicines, and we’ll leave with dire predictions about the future. She’s probably planning to warn us never to have children, because they’ll be born monsters.”

He shook his head, smiling. “I think this talk that Lungile had with you of not having children is making you want children more.” He turned to look at me, stroked my calf. His fingers were warm, familiar. I quivered, even in the warmth of the fire, and he put his arm about my shoulders. “That would be in character,” he said softly. “Wouldn’t it? You’ve always wanted what you can’t have.”

“Always,” I whispered, turning my face to him, teasing. “That’s the only reason I’m here. I don’t really like you at all, you know—all I want is forbidden fruit.” I smiled in the darkness as I ran my hand down his thigh.

“You think we’re going to see a witch doctor, performing magic and sleight of hand,” he said quietly. “But the real ones don’t claim to have any powers of their own—they believe they’re chosen because they have the ability to communicate with the Shades. They’re diviners—all they do is act as a medium for what the Shades want to say to their children.”

“Why does there have to be an intermediary?” I asked. “Why can’t they communicate directly with the spirits of their ancestors?”

“It’s a little strange,” he said, amused, “that although you have no direct communication with your ancestors, you wonder why we don’t.”

“You’re the ones who have diviners,” I responded. “All I’m doing is asking why you need them.”

“Such a white question,” he said, tightening his arm about me. “Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow whether we need them or not.”

We waited almost until noon the next day before the
sangoma’
s trainee came to tell us she was ready to see us. That morning, a thunderous summer rainstorm had started; the clouds were low and dark, seeming to fly along just above our heads; there were heavy winds and lightening, and the homestead seemed deserted. I had only just learned that lightning and thunder are signs that
Inkosi Amakhosi
is angry, and during such storms, people sit silently in their homes and wait. We thought that the
sangoma
would wait until the storm was over to see us, but when she summoned us we waited for a lull in the rain, and then ran to her hut, which was set apart from the other dwellings, on higher ground.

Cow skulls with horns still attached were tied to the doorframe, some ancient and dried, others relatively new. White beads were woven into the roofing thatch, and a small section of thatch on one side of the entrance had been inserted backwards, so the seeded ends hung over the edge of the roof. The hut was darkened, and when we entered, we were greeted by a sharp, acrid smell. It was pungent, but not unpleasant—a combination of burned herbs, sweat, smoke, and sweet beer. Khabazela sat in the man’s place to the right of the door; I sat in the woman’s place, to the left. At the back of the hut, the place of the Shades, a fire was burning, and beside it there were several earthen containers, and bundles of dried herbs and medicines. To the right of the herbs, on a grass mat, a small woman sat in a squatting position on a raised platform.

She was bent over, peering at something on the ground in front of her. Her grey hair was a wild nest in which were woven dried cow bladders and medicinal roots. Around her neck she wore snake vertebrae threaded on rawhide, and she had many bracelets on her wrists—copper, cowhide, gall bladders, woven hair from cow tails. She spoke throughout our interview, either talking to herself in a mumbled monotone, or addressing us. Several times, she gathered the collection of small bones on the floor and let them drop casually before her, then carefully examined where and how they had fallen, their relationship to one another, and whether any had landed outside her circle. She did not look at us once; only at the end did she raise her face to us, and even then her eyes were closed.

We sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the thunder and lightning, and to the sound of her mumbled words. There were moments when I would have laughed, but I didn’t want to risk giving offense, and so I kept silent. Khabazela spoke first, his tone hushed.

“Mother,” he said, pointing to me, “she speaks our language, but not well. I ask your permission to speak your words in English for her, so that she can understand. It will not be a sign of disrespect.”

In response she raised her shoulders, making a dismissive gesture with one arm. Her lack of concern was unmistakable. If there was a message, she would deliver it—but she didn’t care if he translated for me; didn’t care whether I understood or not. We had come a long distance to hear her words; one of us, at least, had some investment in what she would say. But she had no connection to us, and her detachment made me uncomfortable. If she bore no responsibility whatever for the message she was about to deliver, then there were no limits to what she might say. It struck me, finally, that this was not some playful exercise, and that it might have unintended consequences for which no one would be responsible.

As she spoke she underwent a series of bone-wrenching trembles and quivers, as if to emphasize that others were speaking through her. Despite the quivering, her voice was strong and steady, devoid of emotion, and disembodied.

“She is filled with sorrow,” she said, raising her right arm and extending it towards me, fist closed, “for her first child.” These were simple words, and I understood them, but Khabazela, looking down at the floor, repeated them for me in English. “She says you are filled with sorrow for your first child.”

“The boy is not lost,” she said. “He will return to her from very far distances when she is an old woman.”

Khabazela, still looking at the ground, repeated the words I thought I must have misheard.

“Not until I’m an old woman?” I heard myself say. “How does she know about Steven?”

She ignored me, threw the bones again, and stared at them. “She should not waste her sorrow on this child. In time there will be sufficient reasons—other reasons—for sorrow.”

He repeated her words, and she raised her left arm so that she was pointing a closed fist at each of us. I understood little of what she said, and even after Khabazela translated, sentence for sentence, I had more questions than answers.

“She says that together with—another woman—another mother—you and I will raise two children. Two sons—” his halting voice told me this was more than even he had bargained for “—who will have work to do among us in the early parts of their lives. We will have a grandchild from one of these sons, who has the gift of giving vision to others. He will be one who parts the grass that others may see into the distance. She says we should give him a name that reflects this gift, as a tribute to those who bestow it on him.”

She threw the bones again. As she studied them the sound of the rain increased, beating against the ground outside and pelting the thatch above us. Rolls of thunder boomed overhead as we waited. Khabazela raised his eyes from the ground and we stared at each other. I thought, for the first time, that I was looking at my future.

When she spoke again it was with her right arm raised, pointing at us. I understood only isolated words—evil times, and blood, and hardship. Khabazela sat with his head bowed as he listened, and I waited for him to translate. He may have been weeping—but whatever he was feeling, he was incapable of further speech until we left.

Finally the
sangoma
stopped speaking, dropped her arm into her lap and raised her head for the first time, her eyes closed. Her trembling ceased, and when she spoke again it was in the high, uneven quaver of an old woman. “I am empty. Go.”