Hunger Eats a Man (16 page)

When Priest arrives home from the meeting, his wife has not come back from the Welfare Department. His own journey has been in vain. Not that he expected much. He has heard what the agriculturalist said many a time before. Many people claiming to work for government have come to tell them the same old story that they should form an organisation so that the government will offer them funds to work for themselves.

Now his hope, little of it, is in the journey of his wife. If she manages to secure that R100, at least they will be able to get maize meal. He thinks about the amount of the grant, trying to ascertain its actual worth to the family of four. “If people lived only by eating, this money would still be small. The politicians are just making fools of us, and because we are hungry and pretty much close to being fools, we will do all we can to get that small amount.”

Thinking of hunger makes Priest go to the kitchen in search of food, yet he knows there is none. On top of the sky-blue coal stove are three pots, distinguished by their sizes. There is a big, a medium and a small pot. The family normally use the medium and the small pots. Priest opens the medium pot, which is supposed to have pap in it, and realises that it is as clean as he left it. He takes the small one. It is also clean. This time he does not return the lid so soon. He gazes at the pot and the lid alternately, and demands from the pot why it stores no food for him: “What do you think I will eat? Can't you see that I am hungry?” He bellows so loudly that his words echo through the whole house.

After a while Priest leaves the kitchen in haste, as if there is danger lurking. Back in the living room he sees the image of Jesus on the cross that hangs on the wall. Priest climbs on a chair and removes the image. He looks fixedly at it and demands softly, “Why is it that you are only a work of art and you cannot hear us and help us when we are so hungry?”

He goes to seat himself on the sofa, still looking at the image as if he does not want to miss a word of its response. “You cannot even
lie to us like the politicians and say you and your Father will come to help us.” Priest again allows the image a chance to respond, but it is as lifeless as ever. He then kisses what is supposed to be the head of Jesus.

“I have always loved you despite your being so far away. In fact, I still love you.” He fixes his gaze at the image as if it can hear. “But hunger is so powerful that one requires those friends who do not forget him when they have got what they want. You left us here to starve while you live happily with your Father, just like these politicians did when they came to power. The only thing you both want is for us to worship and to support you.”

He pauses, as if wondering if he is sure of what he is to say next.

“From now on I will not worship or support anyone. I am my own leader and god.”

Priest then looks at the wall from where he has removed the image of Jesus. He hurls the image against the wall, exactly where it used to hang, thus breaking it into small pieces.

He stands up abruptly and begins to move up and down in the room, not sure of what he is doing. But what he is doing and what he has done makes him forget that he is hungry. He goes to the bedroom he shares with his wife and takes his tattered priestly garb from the wardrobe. Then he gets the Bible and some Christian and other religious pamphlets. He opens a drawer and takes the four baptism certificates of himself and his family and his own certificate of priesthood and throws all these outside. He then goes back to the room and takes their political party membership cards.

When MaDuma arrives home late in the afternoon, Priest is happily nursing the fire in which he is burning everything in the house that relates to God or politicians. She is very surprised by what she sees, especially the blissful nature of her husband. She demands to know what he is doing, which makes him very happy.

“Getting rid of anything that symbolises our relation to God or the politicians,” Priest smiles gently as he speaks.

“I don't understand what you are talking about,” MaDuma looks honestly puzzled.

Priest explains, “All our political party membership cards and T-shirts with the politicians' big empty heads and any other things related to politics or the politicians is burning here. All my priest's wear, the Bibles and pamphlets and anything relating to God or His Son are burning here.”

That MaDuma is beginning to realise what is going on is evidenced by the change in her expression. “I am sure you did not burn my rosary. Just now I am going into the house to thank God that my journey was successful. When I do that, I am going to hold my rosary in my hand like I did when I prayed for a good journey in the morning.”

“It's here,” Priest points to the fire. “It is the symbol of our oppression. How long have we lied to ourselves?”

MaDuma is angry with her husband. “I want my God back!” she bellows. She looks fiercely at her husband, as if stating that, if he fails to comply, she will kill him.

However, Priest is oblivious to his wife's anger. “Your God? You have no God.”

“You are mad!” she manages to growl through her anger.

Priest is happily tending the subsiding flames. “I have been mad all my life. But I have healed myself now. That is what is good about being your own God,” he says, beating his chest.

MaDuma's anger is reduced as she convinces herself that something might be really wrong with her husband's mind. She drags herself inside. She feels some pity for her mentally sick husband, but she is very sorry about her rosary. It has been a part of her life ever since she was a girl. She grew up as a Roman Catholic, and the only thing that mattered to her in the church was singing, because she has a beautiful voice. As she grew up, she showed little or no interest in the God who lives in heaven. She does not care if that God created her and the world she lives in. She does not know Him. Her love and trust
is in the rosary, which she can hold and touch and feel. It is close to her. But now it has gone.

In the days after the bonfire, Priest wanders aimlessly through the house. His wife and children stay clear of him, thinking he has gone mad. He can no longer visit his friend Sithole as he has always done when he wants to get away from his troubles, and it depresses him to be outside where all he sees is poverty and hunger.

On this day he goes to Sandile's room. As he enters, his attention is taken by some papers on his son's bed. It's a short story called “River of Blood”. The one that Sandile spoke to him about – the story that wrote itself. Priest sits on the bed and reads it, page after page. He has just finished the final paragraph when Sandile enters his room.

Priest looks at him with a mixture of anger and disbelief, and says, “Is this how it ends?”

“Yes, Father. I edited it.”

“But why? The truth is the truth – we can't change it by ignoring it.”

“Of course we can't. But I thought there was too much blood and it might create an impression that violence is the answer.”

“What is the answer?”

“I don't know, Father. I do not know.”

Once upon a time there was a group of people who lived in a place called Gxumani Maselesele. This name emanated from the saying of these people's language that each and every frog jumps on its own.
Many people in this area were hoping that their new government would improve their lots after they had successfully fought against the government of the foreigners and set up a new democratic government. But when they brought their troubles to the new government, they were told that each and every frog should jump on its own. The new government saw these people as a disturbance to its new rule, saying that these people wanted things for free. After that the people named this area Gxumani Maselesele.

This Gxumani was made up of two very different areas. The one was Canaan, the stronghold of the new government that the people had voted into power. The second one was Ndlalidlindoda, where the voters lived with all their disillusionment.

This story took place a long time ago, but it is still happening today. Perhaps, even tomorrow it will still be happening.

It was on a Friday morning that the Gumede family, with all the families in Ndlalidlindoda, woke up to see their homesteads swarmed by some odd-looking strangers. It was hard to believe that all the people from Spolweni and White Mountain could leave their homes and invade Ndlalidlindoda with everything they owned. But this was what MaDuma saw. She stepped outside the front door and felt her blood race when she noticed that there were about twenty people loitering around in her homestead as if it was theirs. They looked disgusting, ghostly. They looked as if they had been living on the streets for many years. When MaDuma saw how at ease they were as they moved about her grounds, she thought there was only one explanation for it all: it was a dream.

She tried to register everything she saw so that she would be able to tell her husband when she woke up. But when her husband came out of the house and shouted, “
Yeyeni bo
!”, she realised she was not dreaming. No! It was not a dream that there were men, women and children loitering inside her home. She was frightened when she noticed that the four men in the group carried sjamboks and did not
hide the guns they were carrying at their sides. The women were also armed with axes and bush knives.

“What the hell is going on here?” Priest demanded sternly. “What are you doing here? Have you come to ask for a ‘good relation'? If so, why aren't you shouting my clan names?”

Priest tried to sound as fearsome as he could, but the people in his home did not mind his anger. The man who answered him after some two minutes of looking at him harshly was short and dark. He had a round face and Priest thought his mouth was too small for his big head. His name was Phakathi Kwezinja (Among-the-Dogs). He looked like a violent man and would have been a tough guy if he had had enough to eat. In addition to the gun he did not hide, he carried a sparkling spear, which had a big, fearsome stabbing point.

“We are here to eat!” he pointed down with his spear. The other members of the group made some inaudible noise of consent, and Priest first thought of Ethiopia and then of Zimbabwe.

“I don't understand what you are saying!” he waved his hands in the air.

“I said we have come to eat!” the short man said forcibly, and Priest took a step back from him when he saw the spear sparkling.

MaDuma intervened, “If by that you mean you have come to ask for food, we are sorry we do not have it.” MaDuma was able to hide her fear. She sounded as though everything was fine. “What we have is not even enough for us.”

The mention of some food being available prompted the other members to repeat their noise and Priest decided that they made this noise deliberately to scare them.

“You misunderstood me, Mother. I said we have come to eat, not to ask for food.”

Phakathi Kwezinja spoke as coolly as before and this disturbed Priest. It would have been better if Among-the-Dogs' voice had been violent. But he spoke calmly; only his appearance was all violence.

“This is crazy!” MaDuma started. She could no longer hide her anger. “How can you come to us? We are as poor as you are!”

“Yes! We are as poor and as black as you are!” Priest supported his wife.

Again, the noise started from the other members of the group and only then was Priest able to place it. It was the sound of the bees. For some reason these people imitated the noise of the bees if they concurred with or disapproved of what was said. In his mind Priest dubbed them Killer Bees.

Priest, like his wife, was confused. It was unfathomable to them why so many pitiful people would come to their home looking like death itself and tell them they have come to eat. What did that mean? As Priest's mind travelled in search of answers, he sent his gaze to his neighbour's home and noticed that there were the same number of people loitering there. He looked at his wife, intending to tell her that MakaNozipho was suffering the same infestation, but he found her eyes were already directed there.

What did one do if something like this happened? What did they want? Priest was about to ask them why they did not go to Canaan, but was interrupted when suddenly they all stood up in silence and began heading straight into the house. At Nozipho's the people were doing the same thing. Were they communicating telepathically? Who were these people?

As if MaDuma had heard his thoughts, she uttered one word that seemed a very possible and unsettling answer: “Satanism!”

For a moment Priest forgot his resolution that he worship no one and said a little prayer: “Oh, Jesus, Son of God, help us!”

But as he heard the Killer Bees helping themselves to the little food that was in the kitchen, he remembered that Satanists eat blood, not food.

MaDuma could take it no longer and decided to go inside her house. She found that one of the older women was serving the little pap they had and had been hoping to eat in the afternoon. Since things had become worse, the family had begun to save their food by eating only once a day and eating only enough to keep them alive.

As she came in, MaSkhwama looked at her with a smile and said, “Don't worry, you will have your share!”

MaDuma realised that she had become a stranger in her house. “We were going to eat that this afternoon. We have nothing else,” she said in a sad voice and she sounded as if she was going to cry. What was happening at her home? What was going on at Ndlalidlindoda?

“No one is going to eat while we starve!” MaSkhwama said sternly. “We will all have our share!”

“But why us?” MaDuma said in a voice trembling with tears.

“Oh, don't take it personally. If you haven't noticed, all your neighbours have visitors like us. I assure you that the whole of Phanekeni and Mswane are visited by the same number of people as you see here,” MaSkhwama said in a jovial mood, but MaDuma could tell that there was no happiness in it at all.

“Don't say it as if it is a good thing. You are all shameless people of Satan,” she replied. As she uttered the last word she hurried outside to her husband and her children, who all looked as if they had never been lonelier in their lives. They stood at the gate, speechless, and MaDuma could not hide her tears watching, as she was, her children scared to death, knowing that she could not help them.

“I am going to call the police!” she tried to reassure them.

“If you want us to die,” Priest reproached her.

As they were leaning on the gate, looking west, they heard violent noise coming from Nyandeni's home. It sounded as though the Killer Bees were attacking him. The short man had been a professional athlete and it was possible that he had tried to fight them. Priest and his family listened to the screaming man and his children. Zandi held on tighter to her mother.

Nyandeni came running up the street. Behind him were the younger children of the Killer Bees. Each of them carried a school bag filled with stones. Now they were chasing Nyandeni, stoning him to death.

“Okay!” Priest shouted from his gate. “We get the point! Just don't kill him!”

Priest went out in the direction of Nyandeni to try to help him. As he was going, Sithole came up beside him. “I have good news, Gumede!”

This was the direct opposite of what Priest had expected. There was nothing good about the appearance of the man in front of him. “Well, good for you, because I have nothing but bad news.”

“The good news, Gumede, is that as of today I am joining the Watch Tower. I will worship the one and only Son of God. My food will be nothing but the Bible!” Sithole's voice was tired, sad and angry. Priest looked for a smile on his friend's face and found none. Sithole was not joking.

“Why, Job, son of Matshana, what has God done for you that you have changed your belief system so suddenly?” Priest was honestly curious.

“It's not a question of what God has done for me. It's because of what my ancestors have not done for me that I have decided to be a Jehovah's Witness.”

“Wow! For a moment I thought you were serious, but you are playing again,” Priest smiled dryly as he looked at his friend in astonishment. “That is not a good enough reason to commit yourself to serving God.”

“I don't care about that, Gumede! What I do care about is that all this time I have been fooling myself into thinking that my ancestors are protecting me,” Sithole felt hot as he spoke, the anger in him immense. “I am particularly disappointed in my great-grandfather, Hlomendlini (Arm-Yourself-in-the-House). How can someone with a name like that and a history of bravery and rudeness let those street people swarm my home? Hhe?” Sithole shouted so forcefully it sounded as if it was Priest's fault.

“But every home here is invaded like yours. It's not like you have bad luck or something,” Priest tried to soothe his friend.

“Don't tell me about other homes!” Sithole shouted at Priest. “I am talking about my own.” He beat his chest. “Is there a man here in Gxumani who slaughters goats and cattle like I do? Hhe?”

“No,” Priest said coolly.

“Now how can you expect me to be content with what happens to the other homesteads? No, Gumede,” the anger in Sithole was growing as he spoke.

Priest did not know what to say. How could he tell his friend that religion is not what they have both thought it is? “The invasion of the Killer Bees is as shocking to us as it is to you.”

“What is that now?” Sithole was confused.

“I mean these people who have come to rob us of the little food we have. They are Killer Bees because they make the sound of bees and look very much like killers, which they are.”

“Hmn! I hate this life! I have never been this confused before. Every time I had a problem I burnt incense and spoke to my ancestors, now I am sure that I have been talking to myself and feeding the poor people of Ndlalidlindoda. Now I don't know what to do. Would you teach me how to pray?”

Priest ignored that question and said to his friend, “You know what I think?”

“How can I know anything if things are like this?”

“Imagine if the Killer Bees came to save us, not to destroy us?”

“What? I talk to you about something serious and you tell me that?”

The Killer Bees stayed and ate in Ndlalidlindoda for about a week. It was on Tuesday the following week that Priest, and all the people of Hunger-Eats-a-Man, were summoned to attend the meeting in an open area bordering the Phanekeni and Mswane sections.

During the week of their stay, the Killer Bees communicated among themselves, as Priest could tell by the coming and going of messengers to his house. They were reporting to MaSkhwama about their progress in the homes they occupied and to take orders from her. Now it was the time for the Killer Bees, whom Priest had heard call themselves The Destitute, to take up their second step of action.

The people Priest and MaDuma found in the open space just above
Yizo-Yizo were so many that Priest felt his scalp tingle. The Killer Bees were armed as before, guarding MaSkhwama, who was speaking through a loudhailer to reach the ears of all who were in attendance.