Little Suns (27 page)

‘I demand to be locked up with my King Mhlontlo,’ said Malangana. ‘I was with him when the deed was done. I will be with him when you kill him.’

They broke into laughter when it became clearer to them what he was talking about.

‘He is talking about the prisoner from Palmietfontein,’ said one of them.

‘Dovey’s prisoner! We didn’t know what to do with him. We had no evidence against him,’ said the sergeant.

Malangana was getting desperate.

‘But Dovey sent me here,’ he said. ‘He said I should tell you so.’

‘Dovey is a fool. He knows we had the case already on November 3rd before Acting Resident Magistrate David Eadie,’ said the sergeant. And then he turned to the black policeman and said, ‘Just explain to the man in his language.’

The black policeman took over and told Malangana in Sesotho that the trial was very brief. Dovey gave evidence to explain how he had arrested Mhlontlo. Mhlontlo’s defence was that Dovey crossed the river to see him and grabbed him from Lesotho. The magistrate ruled that there was no evidence against Mhlontlo, but he would be remanded in custody while he sent a telegram to the Secretary of Law in Cape Town seeking advice on what to do with the prisoner. The telegram was duly sent and on November 4th the Secretary to the Law Department responded to the effect that the Warrant of Apprehension had been issued and that Mhlontlo had to be remanded to Umtata under strong escort. On November 5th the said prisoner, namely Mhlontlo, was transferred from Herschel to Umtata Jail.

Malangana insisted on responding in English and addressing the white sergeant. He said if Government had sent Mhlontlo to Umtata he was insisting that he be arrested and sent to Umtata as well since he was part of the same case. Mhlontlo could not be tried alone when he, Malangana, was also present when Hope was killed.

‘Listen, we know nothing about that,’ said the sergeant. ‘It’s not our case. Go and tell them there in Umtata.’

‘You want me to use my money to go there? It is your job to arrest me and send me to Umtata,’ said Malangana.

‘Sorry, we are not interested,’ said the sergeant. ‘And we are busy.’

Another policeman waved some documents in front of him and said, ‘Actually the prisoner is no longer in Umtata. He is in Kingwilliamstown. It says here the Secretary of the Law Department in Cape Town sent an urgent telegram on November 6th to the Chief Magistrate of Umtata telling him that they decided the preliminary examination would be in Kingwilliamstown and Mhlontlo had to be transferred to the Kingwilliamstown Jail for that purpose.’

The sergeant broke out laughing and said, ‘We are not taking you to Kingwilliamstown either. So leave before things get nasty for you, my friend.’

The black policeman warned him that the sergeant was a very nice man and had been patient with him for far too long. He shouldn’t test the kindly white man too much. He should leave in peace because no one was interested in arresting him. No one
would
arrest him. Instead they would beat him up and throw him out in the street.

Malangana stood there for a while and considered this advice. The policemen went on with their work and ignored him. He decided that perhaps it was wise to leave. As Malangana was stumbling out the white sergeant called him back.

‘Somebody donate the old crutches lying in the storeroom to this man,’ he said. ‘He looks like he’s going to tumble down every time he walks.’

‘I don’t want your crutches,’ shouted Malangana. ‘I want to be a prisoner with Mhlontlo.’

Actually he needed those crutches. His gait was becoming strained and painful. He had not been doing much walking in Qomoqomong. He didn’t realise that his joints had deteriorated to this extent.

He asked the herdboy to ride with him to Zastron in the Orange Free State where he took a train to Kingwilliamstown. The herdboy rode back to Qoboshane with the two geldings.

Now he was done with Kingwilliamstown. It was going to be months before there was a trial, they told him. And only Mhlontlo would be tried. Not anyone called Malangana, son of Matiwane. They did not know him, never heard of him, did not want to know him, and did not want to lock him up either. If he kept on pestering them they were going to blow his head off.

Government had no appreciation of his role in the War of Hope.

He walked to the ticket office and bought a train ticket to Umtata. From there he would see how to get to Qumbu.

He has taken to sitting outside his hovel on the slopes of the hill in the clearing that used to be a camp of the tree planters surveying those parts of the village within his view. He sees the puny villagers going about their business. He despises them all for their ignorance. The old residents whose blood he shares from the blue lakes of eMbo and the new residents who were placed there to lord over them as a reward for their loyalty after the War of Hope. They are all ignorant of him. And he is happy to leave them at that. And to play his drum.

Depending on the direction of the wind, the people of the village can hear the drum from time to time throughout the day. Sometimes it goes on for hours on end. Then it stops. The drummer is tired. He is not a strong man. He is skeletal. They are surprised he wakes up breathing and drumming every morning. Sometimes in the middle of the night they hear the drum. And sometimes when the drum is silent they see him hobbling down the hill to the village on his twisted crutches, with the heavy drum hanging on his back tied with a leather rope over one shoulder. He refuses when anyone offers to help him carry the drum.

He takes it with him when he has to go to the general dealer’s store. He dare not leave it at his hovel on the slope of the hill. What if someone comes and steals it? It is all he has left of Mthwakazi. He is no longer looking for her. All that
mkhondo
thing was nothing but shit. That is why ever since the day he walked to Sulenkama accompanied by stories of the past there has not been an inkling of it. It was strong all along the way but suddenly stopped when he entered Sulenkama. And yet Mthwakazi has lived here. Her traces are all over this village. Why is her
mkhondo
absent here then? One would easily believe some mischievous spirit was playing cruel games with him, yet everywhere there was a
mkhondo
there was always confirmation that indeed Mthwakazi had been there.

The chase has been fruitless. He has given up on Mthwakazi. All he is waiting for is death. He will die a happy man, with her drum in his arms. That is another reason it must always be with him everywhere he goes. Because the day and the hour are not known.

On other occasions the drum is silent because he is walking to the Sulenkama River for his ablutions. Sometimes when he has enough strength he walks right up to the confluence of Sulenkama and Gqukunqa and sits on the bank and dips his feet in the water and plays the drum.

The people of Sulenkama do not know that he despises them for their ignorance of him. They think they know him: he is the Madman of the Hill who used to claim to be a war hero but is now silent about it since he was exposed as a fake by itinerant tree-planting boys. Once in a while the Madman of the Hill gets fed up with people at the general dealer’s store and shouts: ‘I don’t care what you say, my spear did taste his heart even though he was already dead.’

No one knows what he is talking about. This outburst happens when people are gathered around whoever has the news of the trial that day.

It is the only mad thing he expresses. That, and the beating of the drum. Everything else he utters sounds quite sane and reasonable. When people greet him he responds politely and is even able to conduct a civil conversation about the weather, and its being May, the end of the amaMpondomise year which is also the time of harvest; he comments about the brightness of Canopus at night and the promise of a good harvest this year. He seems to exude compassion and wisdom. Even the beating of the drum: those who are less mean-spirited consign it to
ukuthwasa
rather than madness – that is, perhaps he is being summoned by the ancestors to join one of the sacred orders of diviners.

He despises them, but they do not pay much attention to him. More exciting things are happening in Kingwilliamstown and each day has its new developments. Mhlontlo, who used to be a king, is on trial for a murder that happened more than twenty years ago. Whenever Malangana goes to the general dealer’s store he stops to listen as the men congregate on the veranda around
amakhumsha
who came from Umtata or from Kingwilliamstown that day with the news of the trial. Some even read from the
East London Daily Dispatch.

In the early days of the trial it seemed that the prosecutor was having difficulty getting evidence against Mhlontlo and people were saying it was because of his strong medicine. Who did not know that Mhlontlo was an
ixhwele
in his own right – a powerful medicine man who could work magic? Is the story not told that during the War of Hope he could make the bullets of the white man turn into water? Is he not the hero king who could fight on many war fronts at the same time on his magical horse Gcazimbane which could grow wings?

Malangana pays no attention to all this talk. Yes, he stands, listens, shows no emotion, and then moves on with his heavy burden on his back. He sits down whenever he gets tired and beats the drum.

Some days the trial produces new details and people ask themselves what they have to do with Hope’s murder. They hear that a witness has revealed that Mhlontlo was being paid a Government stipend of sixty pounds per annum or that Mhlontlo sent Hamilton Hope’s horse to a Mr Mqikela after the murder but he refused to keep it; he sent it back to Mhlontlo instead. When Malangana hears this last one his usually indifferent demeanour changes for a few seconds and he giggles like a child who is being tickled. To those who see him it merely confirms the communal diagnoses of the man.

Sometimes a woman – and it is always a woman who wants to make friendly conversation – asks the Madman of the Hill what he thinks of the trial today; does he think Mhlontlo will get away with it? He smiles and politely asks, ‘Have you ever wondered why
amaKroza
stand on their head,
dadethu
?’ The woman being referred to as ‘my sister’ wonders how
amaKroza
,
Orion’s Belt,
has anything to do with her question. But Malangana continues regardless, ‘We teach our children not to point at
amaKroza
with their dirty fingers because on those stars there are three sacred dwelling places: one for the grave where the bones of our ancestors are peacefully resting; the second is where their spirits are roaming free; and the third is the dwelling place of the big man himself, uQamata.’

Then he walks away, leaving the questioner confused. Perhaps these theological outbursts are a residue of the influence of the days he spent at Ibandla-likaNtu.

But sometimes when he is in a hurry and the drum has taken its toll on his weak back, his answer is very brief: ‘The great rains had returned after a long drought.’

Today is like other days. He has no special expectations. It is in the afternoon when he approaches the general dealer’s store and
omathand’indaba
– the lovers of news – are already gathered around an
ikhumsha
gentleman, who is the local primary school teacher. He is reading details in the previous day’s newspaper:
Both the prosecutor, Mr Rose-Innes, and the lawyers for the defence, Messrs H.S. Smith and H.W. Gush, have made their summations before the presiding officer, the Acting Resident Magistrate of Kingwilliamstown, Mr Robert James Dick. The defence emphasised that all the witnesses pointed out that the accused was not present when Hamilton Hope was murdered; he was out conferring with Mr Alfred Davis. Not a single witness linked him to a conspiracy. The accused stated that he knew nothing about any plan to kill Mr Hope and the Crown failed to prove otherwise.

At that moment a horseman comes galloping, waving a piece of paper.

‘It is from the telegraph office in Qumbu. In the case
Rex
v.
Mhlontlo
, the accused was found not guilty!’ the horseman shouts, still waving the telegram, with the horse jogging around the crowd.

There is an instant outburst of applause and yells and screams and ululations.

The only thought that comes to Malangana is: that telegraph office, we set it on fire, didn’t we? I personally lit the fire; but none of these despicable people will believe me. So, they built it up again?

He walks away. Along the path people have heard the news. Obviously news travels faster than Malangana can walk. One can conclude who among them are amaMpondomise from their mood. Other nations may not necessarily have any ill-feeling towards Mhlontlo but may not be overly excited. Yet more and more people these days are becoming increasingly united and would like to see themselves as one black nation, as the
ikhumsha
teacher who was reading
Izwi Labantu
was telling the people the other day. They have seen what the white man can do to them when they are many separate kingdoms.