Tuesday morning. New Year’s Eve. Noria is still fast asleep, and snoring loudly, when Toloki wakes up. He is no longer afraid to feast his eyes on the contours of her body that delicately map the donkey blanket. It is no longer rape, since last night she allowed him to look, and to touch. Last night was like a vision that confirmed that Noria is indeed a goddess. And he was so proud of himself. His body had not betrayed him by having its blood run amok to parts that were prone to getting throbbingly stiff. Nothing got wet, except from the water that Noria had kept on splashing all over his body. Throughout the night he had slept peacefully, and had not been bothered by crude dreams.
For the first time since leaving the village, he had slept naked. Noria had slept naked too, which was a dangerous thing for both of them to do. Smart settlement people never sleep naked, since they don’t know when the next invasion will be. When a massacre takes place one should be able to run away fully clothed. If one has to die, one should at least die with one’s clothes on, so that when they come the next day to gawp at the corpses, and to photograph them for posterity, the body parts deserving of respect and privacy are not displayed to the world.
He dresses in his khaki home clothes, and prepares to leave. But before he opens the door, he remembers that Noria insists that he wash himself every day. He gets his washing rag, which is slightly wet from last night, and cleans his face, and his armpits. He sniffs the cloth, and decides that it does not smell. After all, he reasons, he is still clean from last night’s bath.
He takes a last look at Noria, who sleeps peacefully in the traditional foetal position. He blows her a kiss, and walks away. He really does not know where he is going. And why he is going. He needs to think. He walks slowly towards the taxi rank. It is teeming with excited people, who are already filled with the New Year spirit. Taxi boys are touting passengers. Some even go to the extent of pulling confused old ladies onto their taxis, without even asking where they are going. He gets into one of the taxis, which quickly fills up and drives away. Passengers are packed like sardines in this old vehicle. He therefore cannot see outside, and does not know where the taxi is going. He does not care.
Passengers are talking about the New Year parties they will be attending. For many, this is the most exciting holiday of the year. Even more exciting than Christmas. The revelling starts on New Year’s Eve, with people singing and dancing and getting generally drunk and rowdy. No one sleeps on New Year’s Eve, at least not until the bells toll midnight, and a new year is born with its new problems. On the first day of the new year, the young children dress in their new clothes. In many cases, these are the clothes they wore on Christmas Day. Those whose parents can afford it, buy two sets of new clothes, one for Christmas and the second for New Year. But it is rare for parents to be able to afford this. Most children would rather not wear their new clothes on Christmas Day, so that they can save them for New Year’s Day.
Those who are teenagers do not wear any new clothes at all on New Year’s Day. Instead, they cross-dress. Boys wear dresses, and stuff pillows into their pants and rags into their shirts to make exaggerated buttocks and breasts. They paint their faces with plenty of blusher, and smear thick layers of lip-stick on their lips, and darken their eyelashes with mascara. Girls wear old trousers, shirts, jackets and ties borrowed from their fathers. They smear their faces with black shoe polish. After this elaborate, make-up, the teens go from house to house shouting ‘Happe-eee!’, the same way that younger children do on Christmas Day when they enter each house asking for a ‘Christmas box.’ When the cross-dressed teens enter each house, they ask for a ‘Happy New Year.’ This means that they are asking for delicacies such as cakes, ginger beer, and sweets, which very few families do not provide on days like these.
A lot of the passengers are going to do last minute-shopping in the city, especially for wine and brandy. Some are just going to watch the parades, and while away time until the evening revels begin back in the settlements or in the townships. A few others are going to ply their pickpocketing trade, and to carry out the various con tricks from which they earn their living.
The taxi stops in the central business district. He alights and walks in the familiar streets. They are decorated with lights of different colours, and with banners and bunting – all in preparation for the parades that will take place in the afternoon to celebrate the New Year. Over the years, Toloki has watched many of these parades of colourful dancers with painted faces, dressed in silk suits. Their clownish antics and their funny songs always make the spectators on the pavements laugh. There are always marching bands and drum majorettes. He has marched with the bands every year – they on the cleared streets, he on the sidewalks. The traffic police are already clearing the streets for the carnival. This day is one of the highlights of the year, when we are all carefree and forget about the problems that live with us the whole year round.
He wanders aimlessly, until he finds himself at the waterfront among the tourists. Since he is not wearing his professional costume, they don’t pay any particular attention to him, except of course to make sure that their wallets and handbags are safe. But then that is what they do every time they see someone who does not look quite like them.
At his quayside haunts, he sees some familiar faces. They do not seem to recognise him. He is piqued to discover that although he has been away for only two days, they have already forgotten him. But then a watchman recognises him, and slyly smiles.
‘Hey, Toloki, you are back! What happened to you, maan?’
‘I live in the settlements now.’
‘Ja maan, some vagrant told us that one night you dreamt of a woman, and took your trolley and left. Is she one of the women you met at your funerals?’
‘It is a woman from my village. And it is a lie that I dreamt of her and left. I left because I needed a change from the pollution that your vagrant friend was causing – breaking wind and filling the whole place with the smell of rotten cabbage.’
‘I agree with you, maan. Me too, I would rather inhale rotten cabbage from a woman’s bowels anytime, than from a drunken hobo’s.’
Toloki walks away in disgust. He was only trying to be friendly in responding to the watchman’s conversation. But that does not give him licence to make crude remarks about Noria, whom he does not even know. He drifts towards the waiting room, and sits on his bench. He fondly watches his ships sail away. He has sat there for many a day, and sailed in those ships. They took him to faraway lands, where he communed with holy men from strange orders that he had never heard of, and took part in their strange rituals, and partook of their strange fare. When he got tired of sailing away in the ships that left the harbour, he came back in those that sailed into the harbour, and was welcomed by throngs of votaries. He sailed mostly during those senseless holidays when people did not bury their dead. When he got tired of sailing, he would just sit and while away time by using his thumbnails to kill the lice that played hide-and-seek in the hems and seams of his costume or home clothes, depending on what he was wearing at the time.
He contemplates his life. Now, his is a world that is far removed from those lonely voyages, and from the merciless slaughter of nits.
Toloki finds himself back in the central business district. He is passing by a stationer’s shop when he notices that some art materials are on sale. He enters, and whimsically buys a box of wax crayons and some drawing paper. He has no idea what he wants to do with them. He buys them only because they are there.
He goes to his pastry shop and buys pies and his famous Swiss roll. Outside the store, he buys green onions and dried tarragon leaves. He is going to celebrate New Year’s Eve with a royal banquet. Noria can eat the pies and pastries if she does not like his special austere combination. Or she can eat the Swiss roll plain, without relishing them with green onions. After this shopping spree, he thinks of getting some flowers for Noria. He walks towards the part of the city which has roses growing in well-tended sidewalk gardens. But there are too many people walking about. He will not have the opportunity to pick any flowers today. Not even zinnias. All the streets are crowded with New Year’s Eve revellers, and the police are on the alert all the time.
He dallies for a while, just watching people. Then in the afternoon, he decides to go back home. He smiles as he realises that he actually thinks of Noria’s place as home. It is as though he has lived there all his life.
Back at the settlement, he finds all the children from Madimbhaza’s dumping ground playing outside Noria’s shack. They have been joined by other settlement children, and there is a lot of screaming, and shouting, and running around the shack, and throwing mud at one another. He greets the children, and Noria walks out of the shack when she hears his voice.
‘Oh, Toloki, where did you go?’
‘You should have said so, Toloki, before you left. I was so worried about you. Times are dangerous out there. You never know what might happen to you.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you up, Noria. You do sleep like a log, you know that.’
The children, Noria tells Toloki, have come to play at her house to give Madimbhaza a break. Children get excited on New Year’s Eve, and do not want to sleep until they have seen in the new year at midnight. This means that they will be bothering the old lady until the early hours of the morning. Normally Noria would have gone to look after them at the dumping ground. But as she was worried about the whereabouts of Toloki, she preferred to be at her own shack so that she could wait for him or for news of him.
Toloki laughs.
‘What did you think had happened to me?’
‘At first I thought you had left me. But when I saw that your trolley with all your property was still here, I had hope that you would come back.’
‘I will never leave you, Noria. I am even more convinced of that now that I have been to the city and have visited the places of my old life.’
They sit outside and watch children play. Noria points to a skinny little girl and says that that is Danisa. When she saw all the other children playing at Noria’s, she came to play as well. At first, Noria was reminded painfully of her son, for the two children had played together most of the time. But she has forced herself to accept that Danisa will be there, and will be everywhere she wants to be, without her son.
Toloki remembers the crayons and paper that he brought from the city. He takes them out and starts drawing pictures. He draws flowers, and is surprised to see that his hand has not lost its touch. He draws roses that look like those he brought Noria, the roses that are still very much alive in the bottle that is filled with water inside the shack. He also draws the zinnias that he brought her the other day.
‘I was not able to bring you any flowers today, Noria. But you can have these that I have drawn with crayons.’
‘I love these even better, Toloki, for they are your own creation.’
As the afternoon progresses, Toloki draws pictures of horses, as he used to do back in the village. Noria says that they are the best pictures that she has seen in all her life. She asks him to draw pictures of children as well. Toloki tries, but he is unable to.
‘You remember, Noria, even back in the village I could never draw pictures of human figures.’
Noria jokingly says that maybe she should sing for him, as she used to do for Jwara. After all, Jwara was only able to create through Noria’s song. Noria sings her meaningless song of old. All of a sudden, Toloki finds himself drawing pictures of the children playing. Children stop their games and gather around him. They watch him draw colourful pictures of children’s faces, and of children playing merry go-round in the clouds. The children from the dumping ground and from the settlement are able to identify some of the faces. These are faces they know, faces of their friends, their own faces. They laugh and make fun of the strange expressions that Toloki has sketched on their purple and yellow and red and blue faces.
The drawing becomes frenzied, as Noria’s voice rises. Passers-by stop to watch, and are overcome by warm feelings. It is as though Toloki is possessed by this new ability to create human figures. He breathes heavily with excitement, and his palms are clammy. His whole body tingles, as he furiously gives shape to the lines on the paper. His breathing reaches a crescendo that is broken by an orgasmic scream. This leaves him utterly exhausted. At the same moment, Noria’s song stops. The spell breaks, and the passers-by go on their way. Others come and look at Toloki’s work, and say it is the work of a genius. In the same way that they read meaning in the shack he and Noria built, they say that the work has profound meaning. As usual, they cannot say what the meaning is. It is not even necessary to say, or even to know, what the meaning is. It is enough only to know that there is a meaning, and it is a profound one.
They had not noticed that Shadrack was one of the spectators. He is pushed in a wheelchair by one of his employees. For the first time, he looks directly at Toloki, and smiles. Toloki detects some condescension, but he does not mind.
‘I saw you work. It was a moving experience.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I didn’t think you’d leave the hospital so soon, Bhut’Shaddy. I was planning to go and see you again on New Year’s Day.’
‘I left against the advice of my doctors. I’ll go back after New Year. I had to come back and attend to my business. You know that New Year is a very busy time for business.’
He says that he was on his way to buy more stock for his spaza shop when he saw the crowd gathering. He asked his driver to stop the van, and to wheel him to the shack so that he could see with his own eyes what was happening. He had heard from Noria’s homeboys and homegirls of the power she used to have back in the village, and he had never believed the stories. But what he has seen with his own eyes this afternoon has left him dumbfounded. He has never had so much good feeling swelling in his chest before.
‘I cannot spoil things between you two. Yours is a creative partnership.’
Shadrack is wheeled back to his van, parked in the street a few yards away. As the van drives away, Noria smiles at Toloki.
‘He is right, you know, Toloki.’
Toloki does not respond. He does not understand. But of course if Noria says that Shadrack is right, he must be right. Then she whispers in his ear.
‘And Toloki, don’t be ashamed to have dreams about me. It is not dirty to have dreams. It is beautiful. It shows that you are human. We are both human.’
Toloki is embarrassed. How did she know about the dreams? How is she able to read his mind like this? He tries to apologise, and to explain that at least last night he did not have any dreams. But Noria puts her finger on his lips, and tells him that there is no need to say anything.
While these embarrassing exchanges are going on, the children are busy with Toloki’s crayons. They are trying to copy the images he has created, and are competing as to whose are better. To escape any further discussion on the merits of dreams, Toloki turns to the children and shows them various techniques of drawing better images.
Late in the afternoon, almost towards dusk, a very long car followed by a truck stops outside Noria’s shack. There are many boxes on the truck. A man wearing a black uniform like that of a security guard, or of men whose work is to stand by the entrances of big hotels in the city and open doors for people, alights from the front seat of the limousine and opens the back door. A fat man in a white suit steps out, and pompously waddles towards the shack. Soon all the children are standing around the long white car, admiring it. Other people from the neighbourhood come as well. They have never before seen a car that is as long as a bus.
The fat man is none other than Nefolovhodwe. He greets Toloki and Noria, and laughs in his booming voice.
‘They have never seen a car like this before. It is a limousine that I recently imported from America. It is called a Cadillac. Hey, Toloki, my boy, don’t you think it’s nice that I have come to light up your little miserable lives with my white Cadillac?’
‘What do you want from us? Who showed you where we live?’
‘Don’t be hostile, my boy. When you hear why I came, you will thank me.’
He tells them that he returned from their village that very week. Then he chides them for neglecting their parents.
‘You, Toloki, have neglected your mother, and you, Noria, have neglected your father.’
‘So now all of a sudden you know who we are, and who our parents are? And you have taken it upon yourself to teach us about our duty to our parents? What about your duty to your real wife and your nine children? Do you think we do not know about you?’
‘It is none of your business, ugly boy.’
But Noria is more conciliatory. She wants to know how her father is. Nefolovhodwe relishes being the bearer of news. He tells them that their parents are well, but of course they are much older than he seemed to remember them. Xesibe talks every day of his lost daughter. He still has many cattle, and continues, as before, to be a successful farmer.
‘And my mother? How is she?’
‘So now you want to know?’
‘You can tell me if you like. And then disappear from our lives. You do not impress us at all.’
Noria reprimands Toloki gently, saying that whatever Nefolovhodwe has done to Toloki in the past, he is their visitor at this moment. They must treat him with courtesy.
Toloki, however, is glad to get back at the despicable man, and is rather amazed that a rich and proud man like Nefolovhodwe should just stand there and take all the rudeness being heaped on him. This is not quite the same Nefolovhodwe he remembers, sitting at his huge desk, playing with fleas, and dispensing doses of bad attitude to everyone.
‘Well, ugly boy, you will be glad to hear that your mother too is well. Actually, I went to the village especially to see her.’
‘Why would you want to see my mother when you don’t know the village people anymore now that you are rich?’
Nefolovhodwe ignores this and goes on to say that he went to Toloki’s home. But all the houses were in ruins, as no one had lived there for years. Grass and shrubs had grown all over, and it was impossible to tell that a proud homestead had stood there once upon a time. It was essential that he found Toloki’s mother, since he had come all the way from the city to see her. But he had no idea where to look. At the same time, he did not want to go around asking people. He had no desire to renew acquaintances with people he had not seen for many years. Nor did he want to be bothered with stories of how his wife and nine children, who would obviously be adults in their own right by now, were doing. He just wanted to meet Toloki’s mother, finish his business with her, and drive to town to the hotel where he was staying.
He had no choice but to go to Xesibe’s homestead. Here his quest ended, for he found Toloki’s mother living with Xesibe.
‘Your parents are cohabiting! In their old age, they have caused a scandal by moving in together.’
Noria and Toloki look at each other, and burst out laughing. They cannot imagine how it came about that Xesibe inherited Jwara’s wife, or Toloki’s mother inherited That Mountain Woman’s husband, depending on how you want to look at it. Nefolovhodwe is unable to understand what is so funny about the whole thing. He waits for them to finish laughing, and tells them that both parents seem to live very well in their rustic simplicity and ignorance of the world, and do not seem to want for anything. Of course, he adds, their tastes are simple rustic tastes. They therefore have no idea of how to spend the wealth that Xesibe has accumulated through his cattle. They are, as a result, misguidedly happy. Their only complaint is that their children have neglected them, and do not even go to the village to see them.
Toloki says that he does not believe that Nefolovhodwe has come all the way from his castle in the suburbs simply to tell them that their parents are missing them. Anyway, how did he know where to find them?
‘It was easy. I had people follow you home from a funeral.’
Since he knew from their last confrontation that Toloki was a Professional Mourner, he sent spies to funerals all over the settlements and townships. They went to many funerals, but there was no Professional Mourner there. Toloki is apologetic when he hears this. He says that unfortunately at the moment he is still the only Professional Mourner, and being only one person, he cannot divide himself to attend all the funerals. Nefolovhodwe says he is not concerned with whether funerals have Professional Mourners or not. He is merely telling them of the trouble he went through to find Toloki.
The breakthrough finally came at the last funeral that Toloki and Noria attended. This was the funeral of the patriarch who was killed by his own sons for failing to observe the hair-shaving custom in its proper order. His spies saw the strange figure of a stocky man sitting on a mound, and producing atrocious goatly sounds. From the descriptions that Nefolovhodwe had given them, they knew immediately that this was the man they were looking for. They waited until the funeral was over, and followed Toloki and Noria, first to the funeral meal, and then to their shack. Nefolovhodwe gives a sly smile.
‘My spies told me they saw you holding hands with a woman. At the time, I did not know it was this Xesibe’s daughter who used to make people happy in the village. Are you two married, or are you copying your parents?’
‘Are you married to the young girls you live with? Anyway, what do you want from us?’
‘I am in such a good mood that I will ignore your impudence in calling my wife a young girl. And of course I am married to my wife. I married her in church before a minister. Unlike the old hag in the village for whom I only paid cattle and was deemed to have married by custom. I am a civilized man, my poor ragged children. I do things in a civilized manner. I am refined, and I am cultured.’
‘What do you want from us, sir?’
‘I brought you your father’s things, Toloki.’
‘What things?’
‘The figurines that he used to make in his workshop.’
‘I don’t want them. I refuse to accept them.’
Nefolovhodwe signals to the labourers sitting in the back of the truck, and they start unloading the boxes.
‘Hey, you can’t just dump those things here. What am I going to do with them?’
‘You have got to take them, Toloki. Your father wants you to have them.’
‘And how do you figure that out? You don’t even remember my father.’
Nefolovhodwe, however, reveals that for the past two weeks or so, Jwara has been visiting him in his dreams. At first he was happy, for he thought that this meant he was acquiring the skills and art of necromancy. From his communication with the dead, he expected to learn what the future held for him, and how much more wealth he was going to accumulate. He thought that Jwara would be well-placed to give him advice on such matters, since it was he who advised him to come to the city and make his fortune through the manufacture of coffins in the first place.
But Jwara had other ideas. He had not come to advance Nefolovhodwe’s necromantic ambitions. He said that his figurines were suffering. Nefolovhodwe was the only person who could help, by taking them to their rightful owner, namely, Toloki. After all, he had bequeathed them to his only son, and he could not rest in peace in his grave, or join the world of the ancestors, unless the figurines were given to Toloki.
At first, Nefolovhodwe ignored Jwara’s demands. He was a busy man, who had to look after his business interests which had expanded far beyond the mere manufacture of coffins. He had now branched out into the creation and marketing of marble and onyx tombstones, of plastic and silk wreaths, and of funeral haute couture for women, especially the widows of millionaires. How could he be expected to spare the time, to go looking for some stupid figurines in some faraway village he never wanted to have anything to do with ever again?
Jwara continued to haunt him. Nefolovhodwe thought that he would resist and win. How could he be defeated by a poor man like Jwara? With all the other people he dealt with in his day-to-day life, his word was final. He was idolised and almost worshipped by people who were in awe of his millions. He was even invited to dinners by white people who held the reins of government. How could he then be expected to obey a mere village blacksmith?
Then his fleas began to die. In his nightly visits, Jwara laughed and danced, and warned that more fleas would die if Nefolovhodwe did not do what he, Jwara, was ordering him to do. He stressed that this was no longer a request, but an order. They were going to duel to the end, until one of them gave up or gave in.
Toloki, hearing this, thinks it serves Nefolovhodwe right if his fleas have died. Whoever heard of a grown man rearing fleas, and playing with them? He had had lice back at the docklands, but they were not there because he was cultivating them. They had just been one of his misfortunes in life. He will admit, however, that he had found it quite entertaining to crush them with his thumbnails. Perhaps there is something in our deriving joy and entertainment from creatures that feed on our blood after all. Maybe he should not judge Nefolovhodwe too harshly on this score, since he had also found joy in his lice. But still the differences cannot be ignored. His joy was in the dying of his lice, whereas Nefolovhodwe’s is in the living of his fleas.
Nefolovhodwe had to give in when he lost some of the champion performers in his flea circus. He drove one of his more durable luxury cars to the village, and saw the ruins that were Toloki’s home. When he finally found Toloki’s mother, she said that she did not know what had happened to the figurines, and did not care. Those figurines had destroyed her family life, she said, so she had never been interested in knowing their fate. The last she remembered, they were in the workshop. The workshop was now just a pile of stones. Since all the blacksmith equipment was sold to other blacksmiths, no one ever bothered to go there.
Nefolovhodwe rounded up a few labourers, and proceeded to excavate the site of the workshop. To his surprise, among the rocks and debris, they dug up many figurines. Some were buried in the soil. And all of them were glittering as if they had been freshly polished. Yet no one had disturbed them for all those years.
Toloki is not in the least surprised to hear that the figurines had remained untouched for so many years, without people trying to help themselves to them. He remembers that many years ago, when Jwara was still strong, and Noria was a regular singer at their creative sessions, thieves once broke into the workshop. They stole everything they could carry, including his sets of bellows, but did not touch any of the figurines. At first, Jwara was happy that the figurines had not been stolen.
‘The spirits that made me create these wonderful works are too strong for thieves. No one can touch these figurines.’
But Toloki’s mother dampened his spirits by suggesting that the thieves had ignored the figurines because they were wise enough to see that they were useless.
‘What would any self-respecting thief do with the worthless iron monsters that you spend your precious time making, instead of making things that will support your family?’
Those critical comments started some sobering self-doubt in Jwara. What if the woman was right? Were the thieves making a critical statement about the value of his art when they stole everything else, but neglected his works which were conspicuously displayed on the shelves for everyone to see? He became very angry with the thieves for not stealing his figurines.
When Jwara invaded Nefolovhodwe’s dreams and ordered him to fetch the figurines from the village and deliver them to Toloki, he forgot to mention just how many there were. Nefolovhodwe had thought that they would fit into just one or two boxes. But after they had dug out everything, he found that they were so many that they would not fit in his car. He wondered how Jwara had managed to create all these works, and where he had got the iron and sometimes brass to make so many figurines. Or did they perhaps multiply on their own, giving birth to more metal monsters?
He decided to leave a few men to guard the site, and drove back to his hotel in town. There he phoned his office in the city, and asked them to send a truck, along with many strong labourers, and many boxes. The next day the truck arrived. The figurines were loaded, and Nefolovhodwe and his men drove back to the city.
‘Now that I have given you your figurines, please tell your father to stop bothering me.’
‘I have said that I am not accepting them. What does my father want me to do with these ugly things?’
Noria calls Toloki aside, and whispers in his ear.
‘Toloki, the figurines are not ugly. Remember that my spirit is in them too. And we must never use that painful word – ugly.’
When Toloki turns to Nefolovhodwe again, his anger has dissipated. He tells him that he will accept the figurines.
‘I am glad that this Xesibe’s daughter who used to give pleasure to all and sundry has talked sense into your head. Our elders say that we should build a kraal around the word of the deceased, because it is precious like cattle used to be. When your father says you must have the figurines, then you must have the figurines.’
Toloki says that although he will accept them, he does not know what he will do with them, or where he will put them. There are too many to fit into even a four-roomed township matchbox house, let alone their small shack.
‘I thought of that, ugly boy. I took the liberty of showing some of these figurines to two friends of mine. One is an art dealer, and the other the chair of a board of trustees that runs an art gallery and a museum.’
On examining the work, the art dealer said that the figurines looked quite kitschy, but added that kitsch was the ‘in’ thing for collectors with taste this season. It was likely that this trend would continue for the next two years or so. The museum man disagreed. He said the work was folksy rather than kitsch. And folksy works were always in demand with trendy collectors. Although the two men disagreed on how to define Jwara’s works, they both agreed that it had some value. The problem, of course, was that because there were so many works, they would not fetch a high price. But there might be individual pieces with special features that would make them stand apart. These would certainly fetch a higher price.
Neither Toloki nor Noria understand what Nefolovhodwe is talking about. Toloki wonders how a simple village carpenter with little or no education has managed to acquire this vast amount of knowledge. The information that the despicable man is dishing out to them, with utmost pomposity, is absolutely meaningless to them. All Toloki wants is for Nefolovhodwe to just disappear, and leave them playing with their little guests in peace.
‘Don’t bother your simple heads if you don’t understand the subtle disagreement between the two experts. I had to learn some of these things when I became a multi-millionaire. If you are interested in getting rid of these things in a manner that will profit you, I can call my friends first thing in the morning, and ask them to come for them. And, Toloki, don’t forget to tell your father that I did all these things to help you, at great expense too. He must now stop haunting me.’
‘You know that I don’t accept charity. I am going to pay you back every cent that you spent to bring these things to me.’
‘No! No! Please don’t pay me back. I don’t want to be haunted by Jwara again. Right now, it’s going to take me a long time to bring my fleas to international performing standards again, after losing some of my best champions.’
The workers have finished packing the boxes next to the shack. They are so many that they occupy space that is many times bigger than the shack in height, breadth and length. Toloki opens one of the boxes, and the children are immediately fascinated by the figurines. Even those who were admiring Nefolovhodwe’s limousine lose interest in it, and crowd around the boxes instead. Toloki and Noria take a few of the figurines out of the boxes and give them to the children. Some of the figurines are so strange and sinister-looking that they are afraid that they might scare the children. But to their surprise the children love them. They look at them and laugh.
Everyone is so engrossed in the figurines that no one notices Nefolovhodwe and his truck drive away. He honks the hooter of his limousine, which produces a few bars of a hymn that is an all-time favourite at funerals. But no one pays any attention. Everyone is absorbed in the figurines. The children are falling into such paroxysms of laughter that they roll around on the ground. Toloki is amazed to see that the figurines give pleasure to the children in the same way that Noria gave pleasure to the whole community back in the village.
Just before midnight, Toloki takes out his cakes and onions. When he bought them, he had not known that they were going to have so many visitors. He had thought that they would have a banquet in the oak dining room after taking a long walk in their garden – just the two of them. Now he has to share the cakes with the children. He gives each one a small piece, which simply melts in the mouths of the children like sacramental wafers. Noria tries the Swiss roll with green onion, and falls in love with the combination. Then she chews the tarragon leaves with Toloki, and enjoys them as well. The children are more concerned with the figurines, and their laughter remains unabated.
Toloki and Noria have still not worked out what to do with the figurines. They decide that they will keep one of the figurines in their shack, next to Toloki’s roses, to remind themselves where they came from.
‘With the rest, Noria, perhaps we should sell them as Nefolovhodwe suggested, and take the money to Madimbhaza’s dumping ground.’
‘Or we could let them stay here with us, and bring happiness and laughter to the children. We could build a big shack around them, and the children could come and laugh whenever they felt like it.’
At twelve midnight exactly, bells from all the churches in the city begin to ring. Hooters are blaring in all the streets. The settlement people burst into a cacophony: beating pots and pans and other utensils together, while shouting ‘Happe-e-e-e New Year!’ The din is reminiscent of an off-tune steel band. At every street corner, tyres are burning.
Two hours after midnight, we are still shouting ‘Happe-e-ee!’ We revel staggeringly past Noria’s shack. All is still. There is no movement. No light can be seen through the cracks of the door. The children have gone back to their homes. We look at the mountain of boxes that dwarfs the shack. We do not touch. We just look and marvel. Our children have told us about the monsters that make people happy. Maybe it is the drink, but it seems that we can see them through the boxes, shimmering like fool’s gold. Not even the most habitual thieves among us lift a finger towards the boxes.
Somehow the shack seems to glow in the light of the moon, as if the plastic colours are fluorescent. Crickets and other insects of the night are attracted by the glow. They contribute their chirps to the general din of the settlement. Tyres are still burning. Tyres can burn for a very long time. The smell of burning rubber fills the air. But this time it is not mingled with the sickly stench of roasting human flesh. Just pure wholesome rubber.