Mr. Fasana: A Novella

Introducing the new novella by L. Sojini

Author’s note: The novella Mr. Fasana is set in Mpumalanga during the year 2001.

It takes us through the struggle of a leader of an Ndebele initiation school in the wake of government regulations that led to the Customary Initiation Bill, which was approved by the Cabinet in 2016.

The story unfolds around the personal and spiritual struggles facing modernisation and regulation, and how unexpected turns can change the power dynamics from rural communities to the government level.

In my work, manuscripts are the basis of a living conversation with the readers. As a writer, I want to appreciate and integrate the readers’ feedback and comments, and therefore offer this novella as a work-in-process.

I hope readers will share their experiences, their stories and their contestations. I plan to develop the manuscript further when I hear which characters resonate with them or how the plot could develop differently, or expand into further complexities. Thus, I want to keep the manuscript before self-publishing the novella. This is why I present only the first chapter in print, and the rest of the novella online, a form that can develop further.

Sponsorship for this project comes from the National Arts Council. Proofreading was done by William Chauke.

Update, 2025 (the novella’s full text has been added below chapter 1).

CHAPTER 1

Kwaggafontein landscapes have grown more beautiful and rugged as they have done a great job of absorbing the changes brought by the elements.  It would seem odd to see Kwaggafontein as beautiful. The landscapes might be more pleasurable to look at than they were twenty-five years ago, but who knows how they looked twenty-five years before that? There is a possibility the landscape was as beautiful then as it is now.

Those who know the characteristics of the Kwaggafontein landscape would tell you whether to appreciate it or not. The AmaNdebele established Kwaggafontein in the late 1940s. The town is in Nkangala District Municipality. It is a stony area. Mhlanga River is the area’s major river. The river follows the m-shape, with the middle part mostly erased.

Where the river ends at the top, you turn left, and you find a village called Shobane. The village was named after one of Ndzundza’s sons who settled there.

In the autumn of 2001, Mr. Fasana had been running his initiation school for twenty-three years. In the same year, the government managed to make most initiation school owners take up licenses to operate. Mr. Fasana had been one of the dissenters – or late takers of the licences or papers, if you will. If it had been up to him, he would have continued running the school for its entire history without the clunky papers. As a Ndebele man, he believed that Ndebele people should live according to Ndebele tradition.

Swayed by promises that taking up the licences would make their initiation schools progress into the 21^st century, most men of tradition had taken up the government offer. For the dissenting Fasana, this ‘progress into the future’ signaled the beginning of the end – or the end of the end. It was the end of tradition, the end of Ndebele tradition and culture, the end of history. All the more reasons he had resisted for most of the time. What was the reason for the papers? His father before him had run the school without them. Even his grandfather and great-grandfather. As such, when a foreign culture, as he saw it, had come to impose the end of tradition, he would not allow his son to inherit a tainted tradition.

Of course, there was money involved.

On the 16-18 March 2001 weekend, his son who worked in town and stayed there, Mpiyabo, was home. On Sunday, Mpiyabo – carrying two stacked chairs in his left hand, a notebook in his right – walked up to his father as he was locking up the cows in the kraal. The son had come to tell him that their list that season had eighty-six boys whose parents had signed up for them to become men.

He put the chairs down, sat on one, opened the notebook, and waited for his father.

‘That is an improvement from last time,’ Fasana said, sitting as well, proceeding to ask routine questions.

‘Here is the budget I drafted. We should discuss it,’ young Fasana said.

Fasana scanned the budget, but as they went through the budget, one item destabilized him, but not so much not to make a mental note that he wanted Mpiyabo to organize a job for Nokuphila. Of course, they would talk about this issue after the budget. ‘What is this all about?’ he said, questioning the digitization item that had destabilized him. 

Mpiyabo answered that digitization spoke to the funds they had to put aside for digitizing the poems the initiates would compose during ingoma that year. He also talked about how digitization would be a recurring item on future budgets. ‘It’s about time we digitized the poems initiates compose. This will serve us well if we do it every year.’ Mpiyabo had digitized his poem, a rare occurrence.

Fasana was taking his time to digest what he was being told. ‘Digitize – what? What do you mean? What poems?’ He could not understand.

‘Come on, dad: I’m talking about the poems the initiates compose each time. I’m proposing that money be put aside especially. I belatedly digitized mine; not the year I crossed. I’m proposing that in doing this we’re modernizing parts of an old ritual.’

‘Truth be told, your proposal seems off to me, son,’ Fasana said, thinking that he might forget talking about the job issue. ‘I do not know which part of your proposal puts me off. My blood boils especially when I hear the digitization part. I become very confused, and I lose all understanding. Sad to say, when I hear you talk about the poetry part, I become confused again. Very confused. I have never been so confused in my life. Woo!’

‘Do not be confused, father,’ younger Fasana said. ‘The thing is that if you don’t want to be confused, you must be willing to listen to me and understand. It’s simple, really: we put the poems online – we digitize them, and we’re gonna make it a regular thing.’

At this stage, Fasana had forgotten about the job thingy: there were things he had to school Mpi on. ‘The compositions initiates make are not poems like the poetry you have in your schoolbooks. We have always recited them orally.’

‘That’s the part we have to fix if we want to create a competitive edge.’

Fasana, after hearing this, took longer to answer. He was fuming, his voice was not his normal voice: it was louder now. For a moment, he remembered about the job issue, but he brushed the thought aside.

‘Competitive – how?’

‘If we digitize the poems, then we can keep a true record of the compositions. In that way, we’ll have done away with faulty and unreliable memory.’

This time, Fasana was quick with the answer: ‘Ingoma has always relied on faulty memory, as you put it. This was never a perfect world. The unpredictability of our culture is what makes it African. We were never meant to be a people who keep a perfect memory. Those who want us to keep a perfect memory are people who want us to ditch our culture. Our people were never meant to rely on books and digitization like the whites do. Take away his book and computer, and the white man’s lost – bewildered. Give a black man a book and a computer, and you lose him.’

‘You have a problem with white people,’ young Fasana said. 

‘I have a problem with modernity. I have a problem with memory that has to be perfect.’ 

‘Should we be happy with unreliable memory? It’s dangerous for a single poem to say this today and say another thing tomorrow.’ 

‘It’s not unreliable or imperfect memory,’ Fasana said. ‘When a poem seems different than it was yesterday, that is keeping up with tradition. You call it unreliability. In truth, it’s embellishment; for a culture without embellishment is a dead culture. A culture that repeats things day in, day out, is no culture. Think of it: year in, year out - you read from the same book. What culture is that? Or it’s the so-called modernity, as you term it? Remember, this goes on century after century. I do not want to know what poem my grandfather composed in the process of becoming a man. You should not know what poem I composed. I should not know either, but does not knowing remove the fact that in becoming a man, I composed a poem? The poem, if I wanted, I could tell you it today, tomorrow or as long as I live, but in each recital, the poem will change. In each recital, I will embellish the poem so as to run from soul-destroying repetition, but put that poem in a book, you have ruined me; you have killed me. Now I have to give the same details. What makes me a man is the fact that I can tell you the same story differently each time I tell it. But for you, kids, that’s boring.’ 

At this point, Mr. Fasana was thinking that his son was not the ideal person to take care of the initiation school after he was gone. He was slowly and mentally disinheriting him. What is it that they teach at university that made nowadays kids despise their culture, he asked himself. But if not his son to take over, who would? Perhaps by insisting on the importance of isikhethu, he could still win him. It was important that he discuss it with him. At the other end, young Fasana was thinking: ‘If I can make the old man understand the importance of digitization, then we can win this war, and I’ll run the best initiation school in the village’.

The old man was thinking that it would be an embarrassment if he could not convince his son. What is he thinking – does he think that I am a fool? What about me – am I making a fool out of myself? 

‘Is everything okay at work?’ Fasana said. ‘I have not seen you this distracted.’

‘Ah, it’s okay at work; just hectic.’

‘You know you could always work here at home,’ Fasana said.

‘I cannot come work here full-time. You know my wife is expecting our second child. I doubt a job here can afford me.’

‘How come?’ Fasana said. ‘This place paid for your university. It raised you. It can take care of your family.’

<>

CHAPTER 1

Kwaggafontein landscapes have grown more beautiful and rugged as they have done a great job of absorbing the changes brought by the elements. It would seem odd to see Kwaggafontein as beautiful. The landscapes might be more pleasurable to look at than they were twenty-five years ago, but who knows how they looked twenty-five years before that? There is a possibility the landscape was as beautiful then as it is now.

Those who know the characteristics of the Kwaggafontein landscape would tell you whether to appreciate it or not. The AmaNdebele established Kwaggafontein in the late 1940s. The town is in Nkangala District Municipality. It is a stony area. Mhlanga River is the area’s major river. The river follows the m-shape, with the middle part mostly erased.

Mhlanga River forms an m-shape near Shobane, a thirty-hectare small village that was named after one of Ndzundza’s sons who settled there. The village has about two hundred households, with a population of about one thousand six hundred people and spans about two and a half kilometers. Besides the river, Shobane’s other natural landmark was the flat-topped Kosini, a hill Shobane had made his dwelling and fortress.

In the autumn of 2001, Mr. Fasana had been running his initiation school for twenty-three years. In the same year, the government managed to make most initiation school owners take up licenses to operate. Mr. Fasana had been one of the dissenters – or late takers of the licences or papers, if you will. If it had been up to him, he would have continued running the school for its entire history without the clunky papers. As a Ndebele man, he believed that Ndebele people should live according to Ndebele tradition.

Swayed by promises that taking up the licences would make their initiation schools progress into the 21^st century, most men of tradition had taken up the government offer. The government had been consistent in activating its programme: targeting initiation schools, Kwaggafontein had been chosen as the place where initiation school owners from across Mpumalanga would gather. Fasana sometimes remembered the man tasked with delivering the programme’s messages – twice each month on Mondays – sometimes as Mqondeni and sometimes as Mqondisi. For three months, this Mqondeni or Mqondisi would extol the virtues of the government’s programme. At one point, the wording in his speech had gone this way: ‘What the government is essentially offering is progress into the future. In practice, those who accept the government offer must register their initiation schools’. As the three months went by, more and more people who listened to the man speak registered their initiation schools. For the dissenting Fasana, this ‘progress into the future’ signaled the beginning of the end – or the end of the end. It was the end of tradition, the end of Ndebele tradition and culture, the end of history. All the more reasons he had resisted for most of the time. What was the reason for the papers? His father before him had run the school without them. Even his grandfather and great grandfather. As such, when a foreign culture, as he saw it, had come to impose the end of tradition, he would not allow his son to inherit a tainted tradition.

On the 16-18 March 2001 weekend, his son who worked in town and stayed there, Mpiyabo, was home (he went home every other weekend). Fasana had two children: sixteen-year-old Nokuphila who was in grade 12 and Mpiyabo, who worked in town, having earned an accounting degree at Rand Afrikaans University. On Sunday, Mpiyabo – carrying two stacked chairs in his left hand, a notebook in his right – walked up to his father as he was locking up the cows in the kraal. The son had come to tell him that their list that season had eighty-six boys whose parents had signed up for them to become men.

He put the chairs down, sat on one, opened the notebook, and waited for his father.

‘That is an improvement from last time,’ Fasana said, now sitted as well, proceeding to ask routine questions. He had a high Southern Ndebele voice, but the loudness of his voice was moderate because of age: he delivered it in an assured and controlled manner. This made him sound measured.

‘Here is the budget I drafted. We can also talk about the list of the boys,’ young Fasana said.

Fasana scanned the budget, but as they went through the budget, one item destablized him, but not so much not to make a mental note that he wanted Mpiyabo to organize a job for Nokuphila. Of course, they would talk about this issue after the budget. ‘What is this all about?’ he said, questioning the digitization item that had destabilized him.

Mpiyabo answered that digitization spoke to the funds they had to put aside for digitizing the poems the initiates would compose during ingoma that year. He also talked about how digitization would be a recurring item on future budgets. ‘It’s about time we digitized the poems initiates compose. This will serve us well if we do it everytime.’ Mpiyabo had digitized his poem, a rare occurrence.

Fasana was taking his time to digest what he was being told. The absurdity of the issue aside, he was tired from a ceremony he had attended the day before, a Saturday – a ceremony by a certain Dlamini who had purchased one of his cows. ‘Digitize – what? What do you mean?’ he asked, yawning. ‘What poems?’ He could not understand.

‘Come on, dad: I’m talking about the poems the initiates compose each time. I’m proposing that money be put aside especially. I belatedly digitized mine; not the year I crossed. I’m proposing that in doing this we’re modernizing parts of an old ritual.’

‘Truth be told, your proposal seems off to me, son,’ Fasana said, thinking that he might forget talking about the job issue. ‘I do not know which part of your proposal puts me off. My blood boils especially when I hear the digitization part. I become very confused; and I lose all understanding. Sad to say, when I hear you talk about the poetry part, I become confused again. Very confused. I have never been so confused in my life. Woo!’

‘Do not be confused, father,’ younger Fasana said. ‘The thing is that if you don’t want to be confused, you must be willing to listen to me and understand. It’s simple, really: we put the poems online – we digitize them, and we’re gonna make it a regular thing.’

At this stage, Fasana had forgotten about the job thingy: there were things he had to school Mpi on. ‘The compositions initiates make are not poems like the poetry you have in your schoolbooks. We have always recited them orally.’

‘That’s the part we have to fix if we want to create a competitive edge.’

Fasana, after hearing this, took longer to answer. He was fuming, his voice was not his normal voice: it was louder now. For a moment, he remembered about the job issue, but he brushed the thought aside.

‘Competitive – how?’

‘If we digitize the poems, then we can keep a true record of the compositions. In that way, we’ll have done away with faulty and unreliable memory.’

This time, Fasana was quick with the answer: ‘Ingoma has always relied on faulty memory, as you put it. This was never a perfect world. The unpredictability of our culture is what makes it African. We were never meant to be a people who keep a perfect memory. Those who want us to keep a perfect memory are people who want us to ditch our culture. Our people were never meant to rely on books and digitization like the whites do. Take away his book and computer, and the white man’s lost – bewildered. Give a black man a book and a computer, and you lose him.’

‘You have a problem with white people,’ young Fasana said.

‘I have a problem with modernity. I have a problem with memory that has to be perfect.’

‘Should we be happy with unreliable memory? It’s dangerous for a single poem to say this today and say another thing tomorrow.’

‘It’s not unreliable or imperfect memory,’ Fasana said. ‘When a poem seems different than it was yesterday, that is keeping up with tradition. You call it unreliability. In truth, it’s embellishment; for a culture without embellishment is a dead culture. A culture that repeats things day-in, day-out is no culture. Think of it: year-in, year-out – you read from the same book. What culture is that? Or it’s the so-called modernity, as you term it? Remember, this goes on century after century. I do not want to know what poem my grandfather composed in the process of becoming a man. You should not know what poem I composed. I should not know either, but does not knowing remove the fact that in becoming a man, I composed a poem? The poem, if I wanted, I could tell you it today, tomorrow or as long as I live, but in each recital, the poem will change. In each recital, I will embellish the poem so as to run from soul destroying repetition, but put that poem in a book, you have ruined me; you have killed me. Now I have to give the same details. What makes me a man is the fact that I can tell you the same story differently each time I tell it. But for you, kids, that’s boring.’

At this point, Mr. Fasana was thinking that his son was not the ideal person to take care of the initiation school after he was gone. He was slowly and mentally disinheriting him. What is it that they teach at university that made nowadays kids despise their culture, he asked himself. But if not his son to take over, who would? Perhaps by insisting on the importance of isikhethu, he could still win him. It was important that he discuss it with him. At the other end, young Fasana was thinking: ‘If I can make the old man understand the importance of digitization, then we can win this war, and I’ll run the best initiation school in the village’.

The old man was thinking that it would be an embarrassment if he could not convince his son. What is he thinking – does he think that I am a fool? What about me – am I making a fool out of myself?

‘Is everything okay at work?’ Fasana said. ‘I have not seen you this distracted.’

‘Ah, it’s okay at work; just hectic.’

‘You know you could always work here at home,’ Fasana said.

‘I cannot come work here fulltime. You know my wife is expecting our second child. I doubt a job here can afford me.’

‘How come?’ Fasana said. ‘This place paid for your university. It raised you. It can take care of your family. This talk of digitization reminds me of the Mqondeni Nzulu guy: he is always talking about tradition and technology. You guys have something in common.’

‘I would love to listen to him,’ Mpiyabo said. Fasana responded that this was impossible since the government programme ran on Mondays when Mpiyabo was back at work. Responding to this, Mpiyabo asked: ‘How long will he be around? Maybe I can skip one Monday at work.’ Fasana answered that the last presentation for March was the following Monday. After that, he would come for the last two times in April.

‘I do not think I can skip work tomorrow,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘I will be visiting Top Traders, one of our clients. I must conduct on-site auditing. We will have to see in April. Maybe I can get to hear the guy speak. But since you ask whether everything is okay at work, I am wondering whether everything is okay here at home.’

‘What do you mean?’ Fasana asked. Mpiyabo said that he was tired just like everybody who had attended Dlamini’s ceremony.

‘I talked with mom,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘She says she is worried that you are not selling as many cows as you should. She says this has to do with that article of yours in the paper where you are opposed to the government’s idea of progress.’

Fasana was being cornered again, by somebody else, he thought. ‘I do not have to sell cows to be who I am,’ he said, his temperature rising.

‘That might be true, but only to a point,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Mom thinks that the newspaper article did you harm. Perhaps you should not speak to the media.’

‘How is me not speaking to the media not related to the digitization thing you were talking about?’

Mpiyabo was stunned. ‘Well, if you are happy to talk to journalists, then you should be happy with the digitization.’

Fasana had the last word. ‘I will not speak with the media again, and I will not digitize the initiates’ compositions. It was bad that you digitized yours. But let us talk about the list. Eighty-six is an impressive list.’

‘It is,’ the younger Fasana, going through some of the names of the parents who had signed up. When Mpiyabo mentioned a Mthombo, Fasana said, thinking that anytime now he would raise the Noku issue: ‘I recognize that name.’ He proceeded to tell Mpiyabo that he had chatted with the man a couple of times during the government sessions. ‘He is a great man,’ Fasana said. ‘Someone we should keep close ties with. We attended his sister’s funeral the other time.’

‘A hectic death and a hectic funeral,’ Mpiyabo said, explaining that the woman’s uninvited bitter ex should not have availed himself at the funeral.

‘I say he wanted to steal the spotlight. What a deranged man,’ Fasana said.

‘I think it was more than that,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘He was publicly showing delight at the woman’s death. But we shouldn’t be that despondent: maybe he wanted to have one last conversation with his old lover.’

‘There are ways of having a conversation in public,’ Fasana said. ‘You see, the thing is what when you look at…, but here is your young sister. There must be something she wants to notify us about.’

‘Father,’ Nokuphila said. ‘Mother says that there is someone on the telephone asking to speak to you.’

‘On a Sunday of all days,’ Fasana said, thinking that the Noku issue would have to be discussed at some other time. ‘Thanks, my dear daughter. Look, Mpi: we can pick up this conversation on the budget when you are here again. Let me go attend the telephone.’

CHAPTER 2

After a year of living in a white community in the United States of America, Sophie Khumbule returned to South Africa in March 2002. Of course, during this period she had made numerous visits back to the country, but this time she was back for good. Her next project now that she was back in the country, she had planned, was to go observe a traditional system run by a certain man in Mpumalanga. She had made initial contact with the man exactly a year prior to this, the moment she had just landed in the U.S. in March 2001. At the time she landed in the U.S., the furore over who had won the elections in November 2000 had died down, and George Bush was settling into his new job as the world’s top boss and king of kings.

‘I wonder who is calling,’ Mr. Fasana said when his wife had sent their daughter, Nokuphila, to go tell him that there was somebody on the telephone. At this moment, Fasana had been in a heated discussion Mpiyabo. The pair had argued over digitization, and when Nokuphila showed up, accompanied by Mpiyabo’s six-year-old son, Lindombuso, Fasana had been giving his take on a lesser serious issue: the issue of a bitter ex who had caused unwanted ruckus at their ex’s funeral.

The serious issue could be discussed the next time his son was home, Mr. Fasana said to Mpiyabo, leaving Nokuphila, Mpiyabo and Lindombuso as he went to attend the phone.

‘Who is calling?’ Mr. Fasana asked his wife upon entering the house finding his wife and daughter-in-law in the living room.

‘Somebody important,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘Somebody big. Maybe one of those journalists again.’

‘What do they want again?’ Mr. Fasana said, picking up the phone handle with his left hand and placed it on his left ear. He did not want to be speaking to journalists since the article they had run on him made some distrust him.

‘Good morning,’ Fasana heard the voice of a woman say. ‘May I speak to Mr. Fasana, please? My name is–’

‘Listen lady,’ Mr. Fasana said. ‘If you do not know the time, oblivious to the fact that every man with cows is just about done locking them up, frankly I do not see any reason to know your name or even wish to hear the reason you are calling. For your information, I am not speaking to journalists. Goo–’

‘Before you hang up the phone,’ the lady said. ‘I should inform you that I am placing this call from the United States. And while you are still on the phone, I wanted to request that for my next project, I would love to come and observe your initiation school.’

At this point, Lindombuso entered the house, speaking out loudly. His mother had to tell him that his grandfather was on the phone.

The alarmed Fasana was saying: ‘American lady, you actually have the nerve to think I would sell my people’s secrets. By the way, how did you get my telephone number?’

‘Mr. Fasana, there is no need to think about this now,’ the lady had said. ‘I have just arrived in the U.S. this week. I will be here for a year. My job is to document culture. I am in America, yes, but I am no American woman; I am in America, yes, but I am not American. I am actually South African. I am affiliated with the Department of Modern Culture in Pretoria. I learnt about your resistance to the government licences in the paper. My name is Sophie Khumbule. I will be in touch to tell you more about my work. It was lovely talking to you. Good evening.’

‘That was not a good call, was it?’ Mrs. Fasana said, as she observed her husband’s face. ‘These big people have a way of making us sad – the journalists, especially.’

‘Modern culture!? The woman said something about modern culture,’ Mr. Fasana fumed. ‘What makes them think this is modern culture? We have been practicing this tradition for thousands of years. It is not modern; it is tradition. It is old. Has always been old; has never been new.’

‘How did she hear about you, baba?’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘I heard you asking her that. What was her response?’

Fasana explained.

‘This woman wants nothing but trouble,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘Last time it was a journalist; now this woman. I am starting to have suspicicions. Calls like these will have to stop. The solution might be to switch the line off.’

‘You are right, dear,’ Fasana said. ‘The government sessions and their people are becoming a nuisance. To think of it, I was in the middle of a conversation with Mpi.’

‘I should not have sent Noku to come disturb you in the middle of an important conversation. We should just have to cut the telephone.’

‘Do not worry yourself,’ Mr. Fasana said. ‘We were done talking about the important stuff. Anyhow, I think it would be rash for us to cut the line: what will our customers do when they can get us on the phone?’

‘You are right,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘If you were done talking the important stuff, you should have come into the house. It is late now, and you know Mpi and his wife have to return to the location.’

‘Well, I had been meaning to raise another important issue with Mpi.’

‘About iinkomo or ingoma?’

‘About our daughter,’ Fasana said to his wife. ‘I was thinking if she can go stay with her brother, he might be able to get her a job at the company he’s working.’ To his daughter-in-law, he said: ‘I do not see why you should not eventually come stay with us here.’

‘I will discuss this with Mpiyabo,’ the daughter-in-law said.

Mrs. Fasana, interested in why Fasana would discuss Noku with Mpi, was saying: ‘You have always wanted the kids to stay here. Are you sure you are telling me everything?’

‘That tramp boyfriend of hers is no good for her.’

At this point, Nokuphila and Mpiyabo entered the house, Mpiyabo going to sit next to his wife, and Nokuphila going to the kitchen, Lindombuso following her.

‘What are they talking about?’ Mpiyabo asked his wife. ‘I see dad’s done with the call.’

‘The call did not go well,’ Mpiyabo’s wife said.

‘Right,’ Mrs. Fasana was saying. ‘So, it was never about the job? It was never about her, but all about you, men.’

‘Mom, what are you and dad talking about?’ Mpiyabo said.

‘Where are you going with this?’ Mr. Fasana said to his wife.

‘Your father wants Noku to come stay with you,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘I am not sure I understand:’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Just earlier, father was telling me that I should come work here; now he wants Noku to come stay with me in the location.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Fasana asked. ‘I want you and your family to come work and stay here, help your mother and I with the cows, but I know you are opposed to that, so I thought: why not let Noku come stay there, you can get her a job there as well since she will be done with her schooling in December. I am doing this for her good.’

‘It would be great to have Noku come stay with us,’ Mpiyabo’s wife said.

‘Great, yes, but what about university?’ Mpiyabo asked.

Mrs. Fasana said. ‘Noku would want what we gave her brother: a university education.’

‘University is more expensive that it was when Mpi went there,’ Fasana said. ‘However, I think those institutions are cold: they teach our children to disregard their parents and culture.’

When Nokuphila came back from the kitchen, she said: ‘I wish everyone would not discuss me like I was not here; anyway, if everyone wanted to discuss, it would be best that they know that I’d rather discuss where I’ll be going for university next year in 2002.’

Sensing the tension in the room, Mrs. Fasana began by cautioning her daughter, ending her dialogue with commentary on Dlamini’s ceremony, an event they had attended that Saturday: ‘Noku! You have no right to speak to us like that. Time to talk about education will come. Dlamini’s ceremony was beautiful. Everyone who was there cannot help but praise Dlamini’s opulence. He is a great man. Two cows, three goats and plenty of alcohol. I hear the guests could not finish the food and the drinks. I also got the chance to speak with Dlamini. He was so grateful that we sold him one cow. We should have sold him more. But we could only have sold him more if not for the growing suspicion.’

‘Dinner is ready,’ Fasana’s daughter-in-law said.

‘Thank you dear,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘We will eat and then sadly bid you guys farewell.’

‘Mom, we’ll be here on Friday. You don’t have to be said that we are going.’

Fasana, who had been waiting to offer his view on Dlamini’s ceremony, reignited the conversation after his son and daughter-in-law had left for th location. Fasana told his wife that if Dlamini kept serving God and the ancestors like this, and stop believing what people said, blessings would engulf him. On Dlamini being grateful, he said: ‘How could he not be happy? We gave him inkoni. It is not everyday we give away a bull of that nature. But, dear wife, do not concern yourself about the suspicion. You cannot stand against something and not have people turn against you. That is how this thing is fashioned.’

‘Right,’ Mrs. Fasana said, commenting on the first issue, but showing sceptisim on the second. ‘The important thing is to keep on; however, you should think about your family. I doubt we can survive people’s suspicions.’

‘Your enemies will never desire for you to have breathing space,’ Fasana said. ‘They squeeze you until you forgot who you are – even your name; they squeeze you until you think the right thing is to join them.’

‘Ja, neh!’ Mrs. Fasana yawned, feeling exasperated. ‘It must be the cruelest things to have your family suffer for your convictions.’

‘Trust me, I will never forget my name, who I am, and what I stand for. My enemies have no idea that I am prepared to sacrifice all,’ Fasana said, thinking that in the morning he would be in the same old government with the same speaker all the time. Fasana forgot his name sometimes: was it Mqondisi or Mqondeni? What he never forgot was how sweettalking the lout was. He was the worst of the worst.

However, his wife said: ‘We are not selling as many cows we should. I wish Dlamini could have bought all the cows from you, not get them from Sgubhu. Can you imagine? We only sold him one. Sgubhu must be gloating wherever he is.’

Fasana wished people could not speak behind his back. ‘I doubt Dlamini could have afforded three cows from my kraal,’ he said. ‘However, you and Mpi should not worry yourself about me selling him one bull, for one bull from Fasana’s kraal is worth two in Sgubhu’s kraal. That is how superior my bulls are and inferior how his are.’

‘I am glad to hear that,’ Mrs. Fasana said, thinking of moving the conversation into a different directon. ‘But people do not know that. What will you be wearing tomorrow?’.

Government officials from the Department of Arts & Culture were coming back for their second and last presentation for that March.

‘I will put on my red beret, brown textured pattern overcoat on top of my tweed-textured earthy brown suit jacket, red tie and crisp white shirt,’ Fasana said.

‘I thought the event called for a traditional attire,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘When you keep on wearing traditional clothing, people will think they have you in the bag.’

‘If you say so,’ Mrs. Fasana said, asking whether Fasana’s friend, Nhlamvu, would come fetch him in the morning, or whether Fasana would go to his house.

‘I do not expect him to come tomorrow, so I will have to go meet him at his house.’

‘He does not like coming here after some heavy drinking. He was so drunk at Dlamini’s gathering.

Fasana did not comment on this: he had been drunk as well, and he also believed that he had been more drunk than Nhlamvu. With no further comment, Fasana said: ‘I think I will retire to bed. He knew he was going to need some beer come tomorrow.

CHAPTER 3

The weather was perfect that Monday morning as Fasana walked his to Nhlamvu’s house, one and a half kilometers away. It was just the day to take in the Shobane landscape: his friend, Nhlamvu, lived near Kosini, the flat-topped hill. He could see the hill from his yard, which was Southeast of Kosini. All Fasana had to do was move in the opposite direction, but he had to meander going there as there were houses here and there, preventing movement in a straight line. The roads were crooked, with such roads intersecting at irregular angles. The houses and yards were unevenly distributed, showing an unstructured layout.

He walked out of his yard that morning at seven o’clock. It would take him twenty minutes if he walked casually, fifteen or less if walking briskly. Driven by Sambo, one of the elders in Shobane, the vehicle that transported people to Kwaggafontein would be able to pick them up anytime after half past seven. Walking casually, he took a direction leftwards. He kept walking on this road until he found a road that was close to the Methodist Church. This road went up directly towards the hill. Leaving the church, he turned right, making his way towards Nhlamvu. If it had been an ordinary day, with the normal being taking his cows to graze, he would have not made this right turn, keeping straight. This was his usual route on a herding day: take his cows to the lands and grasses near the church. If you kept going that way, you would find Sgubhu’s house, which was close to Mhlanga River. But this was no ordinary day: he could enjoy the landscape and weather if he was in the mood. The temperature was warm and still, the cool air tempering the sun’s heat; the sky as blue as ever. It was this air that cooled things down, preventing Fasana to sweat. The air absorbed the the heat, its movement shifting the heat. This energy transfer, absorption and scattering, was something that Fasana scarcely felt for he was never one to philosophize on such things. The birds chirped, but Fasana had no time for such things. On his mind were many things: one thing on his mind, as he put his left foot on the ground, followed naturally by the right, was that his cows would be surprised to see someone else open the gates: that duty would be left to Mrs. Fasana today, and the herdboys around his area would not let him breathe when he was back on Tuesday, but this was no big issue (she tolerated the cows when they showed stubborn streaks), so he wondered why it occupied his mind much. Perhaps the issue was more significant than Fasana thought, otherwise what would you attribute the rumination? For him, the fixation on his wife opening the kraal and her tolerance, as he made his way to Nhlamvu’s house, was ruminating on a non-problematic, and as such he was not going to explore the issue more than it deserved.

Another issue on his mind was Noku, his daughter. He had tried to sell the idea that it would be a great idea for Noku to move to Extension 1 in KwaMhlanga. The daughter-in-law had bought the story, but Mpiyabo and his mother had been very sceptical. Why had they been sceptical? Why were they not as gullible as his daughter-in-law? He began thinking that the world would be in a finer shape if all people believed what they were told. His wife and son had seen right through him. What was the situation now? How could he manouvre the situation so he could stay ahead of the Noku issue? He asked himelf these questions, now and then silently taking in the Shobane landscape, as if they would provide answers. The landscapes had their own stories: they were traditional, colourful Ndebele rondavels. Most of the houses were in yards without grass. He took all this in without comment for there was nothing really exceptional about culture unless you were a showoff.

At Nhlamvu’s house, Fasana was greeted by the wife who invited him to seat on the sofa, explaining that her husband was getting dressed. ‘Never a punctual fellow’, Fasana thought to himself, looking at the cigarette stompies all over the place.

When Nhlamvu showed up, with smoke coming out of his mouth, Fasana was greeted him with a hearty ‘Fasana, my man! Fasana, bra van mei! Fasana, achuzi!’.

Fasana cringed everytime Nhlamvu used tsotsitaal. That language, Fasana had told him over and over, was for amapantsula; it was ill-fitting for old men like Nhlamvu and Fasana. But while this was a fair thing for Fasana to say, Nhlamvu, unlike him, had spent years in Pretoria.

‘It’s almost half past,’ Fasana said.

‘Then we better going. Ariye, tsotsi!’ Nhlamvu said, noting that he was ready to go. He bid his wife farewell, giving her a kiss; and the two men – Hlamvu and Fasana – were on their way out. They would wind outside Nhlamvu’s big yard, talking this and that.

‘Sambo is never on time,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘Better him not to be on time, not us,’ Fasana said.

‘Not being on time is going to mess my plans today,’ Nhlamvu said, telling Fasana that there was a customer of theirs who had talked about paying on this Monday. Since the government sessions, fewer people were settling their debts, Nhlamvu notified Fasana, but he had a solution, Fasana shouldn’t worry: the plan was to visit the customer later that day after the session.

Fasana saw things differently: ‘I doubt it’s good business to pay a client a visit when drunk.’

Nhlamvu responded by telling Fasana that a man had to sometimes shun beer in order to succeed.

Fasana looked at Nhlamvu carefully. ‘I function better when I have had a few. Anyway, here’s Sambo.’

The car arrived, and the pair went onboard joining other who had gotten in before them.’

‘I wonder why my customers are slower in settling their debts,’ Fasana said as the car headed for Kwaggafontein.

Nhlamvu attributed the slowness newspaper article that had featured Fasana as the only man opposing the government.

‘Maybe my customers are just broke. That’s all,’ Fasana said.

‘Either that, or they are swindling you,’ Nhlamvu said, giving an example of the customer he had to meet today: Philisi. ‘Philisi was supposed to pay at the end of February. Now, we are more than two weeks in the new month.’

‘Philisi is a sincere man,’ Fasana said.

‘It’s the most sincere person that swindles you the most,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘The more a person sounds sincere, the more they are swindling you. I think I should put the fear of God in the man. He cant seal from us and walk away that easily and have us smile at his thieving.’

‘I see no connection between the article and my customers not paying. And I would you rather go easy on him – for now; his time will come.’

‘I talk to people, and people talk to me, Fasana,’ Nhlamvu. ‘They are not happy that you are being cosy with the media.’

‘Well, yesterday I had another person associated with the media call me. She wants to come and investigate ingoma culture.’

‘She wants to kill your business. I hope you told her to try someone else.’

‘I told her I wasn’t interested,’ Fasana said, thinking that while Nhlamvu was not a reader, he had kept the cutting of the newspaper article.

‘Smart move,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Pity you didn’t mention my name in that article.’

The two men laughed at this. When the car dropped them at a taxi rank in Kwaggafontein, Nhlamvu said: ‘For a man who is opposing umbuso, I think people will see your presence at the event today as an affront, but your presence will persuade people that you are not a sellout.’

‘Look, I have attended these meetings from the start,’ Fasana said. ‘My absence will make them think I have lost. But I am glad to show people that I was never a sellout. Never was; never will.’

‘Let’s keep it that way, but your presence will surely aggravate your enemies,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Sgubh’esimhlophe does not like you.’ Sgubhu was one of the two of initiation school’s owners in Shobane: if a boy did not go to Fasana’s school, he went to Sghubu’s.

‘Sgubh’esimhlophe does not like me because I criticize the way he carries out his school.’

‘A man should run his school the way he sees fit.’

‘There is only one isikhethu,’ Fasana said. ‘You cannot have a million ways of doing the same thing.’

‘In other words, the way you do culture is right, and the way Sgubh’esimhlophe does things is wrong; tell me you are saying that.’

‘That’s why I stand alone at this juncture,’ Fasana said. ‘So be it if my enemies see my presence at the meeting as an affront. I am there to remind them that you cannot take away culture even if you have the might of the government.’

‘If I was not your friend, I would be your enemy, and I would be livid at those words, grootman.’As for me, I believe what the government is doing is the way our culture should go–’.

The minute Nhlamvu started speaking like this, Fasana’s mind drifted: ‘What does this guy know about culture?’ he asked himself.

When the rush was gone, Fasana returned to listening to Nhlamvu talk about how the government was not geared for delivery. ‘These sweet nothings will amount to – weh! Nothing!’ he was saying. ‘Their project of rejuvenating culture is good as they come, but only if they could deliver. Only if the government was geared to deliver.’

When the pair arrived, there were already people inside the room, but the meeting hadn’t started. Having removed his beret upon entering, Fasana scanned around to see familiar faces from Shobane: there was Sgubh’esimhlophe, his so-called enemy. Fasana then glanced at the stage where an empty podium stood in the center, with about five or six chairs behind. Fasana noticed that only two chairs were occupied.

‘I must go and talk to Sgubh’esimhlophe,’ Nhlamvu said.

Fasana frowned. ‘We came together; now you are abandoning me for him!’

‘You know how it is: they will think we have a war with them,’ Nhlamvu said.

As Nhlamvu left, another familiar face approached. This was Mthombo, clad traditional gear. Fasana’s family had attended the funeral of Mthombo’s sister, having sold Mthombo a cow for that occasion. ‘Lotjani!’ Mthombo said. Mthombo carried ishoba, a sangoma’s wand. Fasana remembered that Mthombo was the man he had been talking about to Mpiyabo.

Fasana’s eyes lit up: this is how a true man greets, he thought, also thinking: ‘We are a warm, down-to-earth people, with respect for tradition’. After the greetings, the pair sat talking, Fasana watching the chairs getting filled, thinking that unlike them (Hlamvu and Fasana, Mthombo had a car of his own, the reason he had come to Kwaggafontein without having taken a ride in Sambo’s car.

‘Dlamini’s ceremony is still talk of the town,’ Mthombo said.

‘Talk of the village, you mean?’ Fasana said.

Mthombo nodded and said: ‘Since I have an upcoming ceremony, I would love to have an inkoni – or much stronger bull.’

‘That is a great bull,’ Fasana said. ‘I am glad that there are great men who still appreciate indigenous cows, but I will have to disappoint you. I was talking to my wife yesterday how I am not in the habit of giving away bulls.’

‘Dlamini must be a lucky man,’ Mthombo aid, but Fasana was suspicious of the way Mthombo had said it.

‘He is a wise man,’ Fasana said. ‘His son became a man at my school. You also made a good choice by considering your grandson to come through mine as well.’

Mthombo: ‘Well, if you are not selling your bulls, it is all good with me: as a man who loves to have choices, I was thinking of approaching Sghubu alo. I will probably send my son to become a man somewhere. I badly wanted to introduce my grandson to you; he would have been best served if he became a man through your school. But I guess the rumors are true.’

‘Mpiyabo showed me your name on the list we have of boys this year. But, what rumors are these?’ Fasana asked. He was worried of losing a customer: the list kept dwindling as the days went by. What’s worse was that he was losing this customer for the second time.

‘The rumors that you are cooperating with whites against isikhethu.’

‘That cannot be true,’ Fasana said. ‘I am about the only man here who is refusing to take the government’s offer.’

‘The act of refusing the government’s offer alone is enough to confirm the rumors,’ Mthombo said. ‘Moreover, you were in the papers, exposing our Ndebele secrets. You of all people know what betrayal that was.’

‘The journalist put lies in that story,’ Fasana said. He hated it when another staunch traditionalist questioned his gravitas as a staunch traditionalist. What’s more, he had formed a notion that it was a good idea to keep relations with Mthombo, but all that was being blown away.

‘Why not come to my house and again have a look at my bulls?’ Fasana said.

‘That is a step in the right direction,’ the man said. ‘Your wife has always treated me nicely when I’m there. You need to start repairing the damage you have done. I will bring my son. I expect your bulls to be well-muscled and robust. I expect bulls with sturdy legs and shining coats.’

Here was a man who knew what he wanted from the cows he wanted, thought Fasana. With any other person, he could get away with saying that inkoni was fit for purpose when it came to having a high beef yield. This is the reason why Dlamini had bought more bulls from Sgubhu.

‘What do you intend having inkoni for?’ Fasana asked.

‘You will remember that we recently had a funeral,’ Mthombo said.

Fasana remembered the sombre funeral. ‘Losing a sister in those circumstances is unbearable and unfortunate,’ Mthombo said.

‘That was indeed an unfortunate death,’ Fasana said.

‘Reason why it is imperative that the family performs a cleansing ceremony at the end of the month,’ Mthombo said.

‘You can come any time to see the bulls,’ Fasana said.

Mthombo thought for a while. ‘Let’s make plans for Saturday,’ he said.

finally the host of the event taking to the podium to start the proceedings. The host struck a lighthearted and selfdepreciating note

‘Ladies and gentlemen, you all know who I am, but I am sure that you have come to hear from someone wiser than me! It is my honour to introduce to you a man who has been sent by Pretoria itself, the government of the people. The man you are going to listen to today is an expert on traditional affairs. More than that, he has new expertise on tradition and technology working together, but while I do not wish to take more of your time or put words in his mouth, I would also love to highlight that our guest had a role in fighting apartheid. He was a member of the Black Consciousness Movement. He mobilized communities to extol the beauty of black pride. His legacy is our freedom today. His resilience continues even now to the days of democracy. Finally, it is my hope that everyone here walks away with great insights on this relevant topic. Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome Mr. Mqondisi Nzulu!’

There was a round of applause. ‘It is a great pleasure to be here. I look forward to learning from you and sharing my iinsights with you. As Mr. Mabhebhe has said, my name is Mqondisi Nzulu.’

Perhaps he was done talking with everyone, but here was Nzulu chatting up Fasana, the dissenter. ‘The little binder himself!’ Nzulu said.

‘If I were you, I would show respect,’ Fasana said.

‘Your response matters more than the provocation,’ Nzulu said.

‘You are provoking me on purpose, I see,’ Fasana said, loosening his red tie, and unbuttoning two buttons.

‘I would say that you are the one provoking the government on purpose,’ Nzulu said.

‘I thought that this was the government that valued the opinions of the people,’ Fasana said.

‘Doing what the government has decided as important for the people is the government listening to its people,’ Nzulu said.

‘In other words, I have no say. I get what you are telling me.’

‘The government knows what’s good for you,’ Nzulu said. ‘In this case, it knows what’s good for the young boys who come through your doors everytime they pass into adulthood.’

‘My old man knew what was best for the boys.’

‘Your father, you say?’

Fasana nodded. ‘Even his father before him.’

‘That was many decades ago,’ Nzulu said.

‘Make your point,’ Fasana said.

‘Those who refuse to take the government’s offer will not be allowed to run initiation schools anymore.’

‘Is that the law? And does the government have the resources to enforce it?’

‘It is the law, yes; however, do you want to see whether we can enforce it? Break it; continue opening your school, and I will personally make sure you face the full might of the law.’

‘You are already losing if you have to win by making threats,’ Fasana said. ‘But what law is this that you are talking about?’

Nzulu explained that it was government law, the law being the law of the people. Fasana said that sunded like the white man’s law, reminding him that he was black, isikhethu being the only lawgiver he recognized.

‘Well, little man: Isikhethu will represent you in court the day the law comes after your stubborn fucking brains!’

‘Whoa, whoa, gentlemen!’ cautioned Nhlamvu.

‘Hold my hat,’ Fasana said to Nhlamvu.

‘What’s with the expletives?’ Nhlamvu said. ‘We are not here for this, comrades.’

‘Lomfana, ngizomfasa!’ Fasana said.

‘Look, I was just trying to convince the man to do the right thing,’ Nzulu said.

‘You might have been in Mkhonto Wesizwe or something like that,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘But, I doubt you know how deep, wide and heavy the streets are. Watch out, my man.’

‘Is that a threat?’ Nzulu asked. As he asked this, some police officers had presented themselves. ‘The police here will take over unless your man behaves. And they will also take over when he keeps running that illegal initiation school of his.’

‘Bona!’ Nhlamvu said. ‘I do not think it necessary to involve the police in this, but come what may, I will definitely be by grootman’s side before anybody takes him anywhere near a police van.’

For once, Fasana appreciated his tsotsitaal-speaking achuzi. Suddenly, he felt like some beer. When he proposed the idea, his achuzi thought that this was the best speech he’d heard the whole day. As they went looking for beer, Fasana commented that he could not believe that his wife thought Nhlamvu drank more than him. Nhlamvu said that his wife believed that Fasana outdrank him.

‘No wonder why my wife does not want you at my place!’ Fasana said.

‘No wonder why wifey doesn't want you at my place either! Perhaps, we’re all just skunks! But here’s your beret!’

‘Reason why I did not want you to meet any client after the session,’ Fasana said.

‘The goes our money!’ Nhlamvu complained.

Fasana woke up on Tuesday ephethwe yibabalas. What’s more, his late father was greatly on his mind; then there was the tussle from yesterday. When his wife asked him whether he wanted beer for breakfast, he declined the offer, knowing a yes was a trap. Why had he not smashed Nzulu, he asked himself.

‘Coffee; just strong coffee: strong coffee; make it doubly strong,’ he said. What if news went around, he asked himself, that he was being disrecpted by another man.

‘You know I had to open up the kraal, and had to close it as well,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘You are a great woman,’ Fasana said, thinking that there was no way such news about the tussle would get to her.

‘Don’t you see the problem?’ Mrs. Fasana asked.

‘Tell me,’ Fasana said hesitantly: did she know something ugly had happened, and was she just about to make mention of it?

‘I never used to open and close the kraal in one day. What is the problem?’

Fasana, somewhat sensing that he was on the clear but not really sure, explained that the government sessions necessitated this change. Mrs. Fasana’s assessment was perhaps clother to the truth: it was alcohol causing these changes, she said, but Fasana perhaps knew the root of this problem, if it was indeed a problem, better. He reminded his wife that he had always been a drinker, and things had always been nice.

‘Maybe it’s Nhlamvu the problem,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

How so, Fasana wanted to know, his wife replying that before Nhlamvu returned to Shobane, yes, Fasana used to drink, but not so as not to close his own kraal.

‘You know what,’ Fasana said, laughing. ‘Nhlamvu’s wife thinks that I am the one who influences him to drink. If we were not friends, she is under the impression that his husband would be sober as a judge, but she cannot have it both ways: if I did not employ him, he would be back in the streets.’

‘He might not be back in the streets,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘But his methods are just as good as those they use in the streets.’

‘What do you mean?’ Fasana asked. Mrs. Fasana explained that sometimes Nhlamvu used heavyhanded tactics to reclaim money owed to Fasana.

‘Once a pantsula, always a panstula,’ Fasana said. ‘Man is a hustler of the roughest kind, but I will tell him to tone it down. He is getting better each day that goes by; he even speaks like a real Ndebele man now. He will get there.’

‘I hope he gets there without putting us in trouble,’ Mrs. Fasana said, noting that their daughter, Noku, was in the room, ready to go to school. A few exchanges with her, and she was back to talking with her husband. Nokuphila’s appearance and disappearance made Fasana remind his wife his displeasure at the relationship between some orphaned kid and their daughter. Mrs. Fasana, on the other end, approved of the relationship. ‘The boy has a good heart. The kind our daughter should marry.’

‘With what cows?’ Fasana said.

‘Love matters more than cows,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘Perhaps, things have changed. In my days, a man could only be a man if he had cows.’

‘A man could only be a man if he had his father's cows, you mean? Is he to be respected for what he gets from his father, or what gets through his own hard work?’

‘I can see why you would be disdainful, wife, for a man to own his father's cows. But this kid does not even have a father.’

‘So, he is being punished for not having a father and not having his father's cows?’

‘We cannot do everything for the kid,’ Mr. Fasana said.

‘There's not many good men like you,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘I am a good father,’ Fasana said. ‘I want what's best for my daughter.’

‘Her happiness should come first for you. And you know we haven’t spoken to her about where she’ll be going for next year as we promised her.’

‘You are he one who promised her, but with nothing but love, will this relationship be good for my daughter? Holding only love, will this boy be a good father? Remember, being a good father means providing for the children as well. I have agreed to waive my fee, but I will not waive lobola as well. My daughter deserves better. My daughter deserves a man who is well-off. A man who can build a home and sustain a family. We can feel sorry for the kid, but we do not need a boy who is sorry to be himself. This is not an ideal suitor. I want to see cows.’

‘Why exactly do you want Noku to move to KwaMhlanga?’ Mrs. Fasana asked.

‘Excuse me,’ Fasana said.

‘You said you wanted her to go there next year.’

‘If it was up to me, she would have gone this year.’

‘To stop the relationship with the boy, is it?’ Mrs. Fasana asked. ‘Well, her going away is good if it is for educational purposes.’

This talk, and the fact that the old man was on his mind, took him back to 82’, his father in a weakened state, losing weight each day that went by. But this was painful wandering for Fasana who was this morning battling babalaas. He put himself back on the current track by doing away with the breakfast. Perhaps, it was better wandering into the past by taking your cows to their regular grazing and drinking spots. There was nothing a good meal and drink couldn’t solve.

82’ had been a bitter year for Fasana. His old man had been sick without hope for the preceding two years. Thinking about his father was hindered by the fact that the orphaned kid was also on his mind. He remembered the day Mrs. Fasana and Hlamvu against his wishes persuaded him to waive his initiation fee since the kid was up for initiation in 2001. This conversation had been held in December of the previous year. ‘Imagine if Sghubhu were to make this boy a man without charging him, everyone will applaud him for being charitable to the boy,’ Nhlamvu had said.

‘I do not see how charity and becoming a man are linked, even if the village applauds you,’ Fasana had said. ‘If I start doing things for free, who in the future would want to pay for anything?’

‘You want to tone down the image of your business, don’t you?’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Maybe tone it a little for we have to be hard to get what belongs to us.’

‘It’s you, not me, who should tone their image down,’ Fasana had said. ‘I am all for firmness, but firmness in a good dose.’

It was Mrs. Fasana who finally persuaded him to take the kid on, a thing he probably shouldn’t have done, he thought that Tuesday morning, scanning his cows. But what could you do if your wife persuaded you otherwise? You could stick to your guns, but only for a while. What had she said, Oh! my wife!, thought Fasana. Ha, ha! He laughed to himself.

He looked at one of his cows and the sight of its protruding ribs worried him. The cow would die, and it would of no use to anybody.

‘You are a good man’, he remembered his wife to have said earlier on – or had she said, ‘good father’? Today, he would keep walking and not turn right; today there was no hill to go towards or government session to attend; today it was back to the old way of life: leading his cows to graze around the church, watch them so as not to go so near to Sghubhu’s place, and then take them to the water at Mhlanga River. This was the life Fasana knew; the life his father had lived; but a life his son was shunning.

Mr. Fasana knew he was gonna be in trouble with the herdboys who grazed their cows where he grazed his. Of concern to him were Sghubhu’s herdboys. They would mock him for having his wife tend the cows in his absence, whereas Shgubhu didn’t need his wife to tend the cows since it was their job. Whenever Mrs. Fasana tended the cows, the complaints would be that she had allowed them to stray into people’s yards, sometimes eating crops.

‘Your wife’s inexperience was showing yesterday,’ one of Sghubhu’s herdboys said near the church. His name was Ratsube.

‘What do you mean?’ Fasana asked. Philisi responded that Mrs. Fasana’s inexperience had inadvertently allowed cows to eat a potion of his boss’s crops.

‘Where did they enter?’ Fasana asked, thinking that Sghubhu should long have walled his yard rather than maintain a fence since the cows always found a way of tearing into a fence.

Ratsube hesitated: he did not mention the opening Fasana’s cows had accessed to steal into Sghubhu’s crops. ‘You have to let me know,’ Fasana said.

‘Ah, well. The boss will tell you himself. He says he wants to see you.’

‘I am a busy man,’ Fasana said.

‘Why not hire people like our boss does?’ Ratsube said. ‘That way, you will never have to be in wars with the boss. What’s more, you’ll let men do their jobs, and not have women want to do them.’

‘A real man looks after his own cows,’ Fasana said. ‘If Sghubhu was as big as you want to make him, he would look after his own cows himself. As for Mrs. Fasana, I think you should allow her to stay out of this. But, so that you know: a third of our cows are hers, so she has as much right to look after them.’

‘Only if she didn’t let the cows go into the boss’s yard,’ Ratsube said. ‘But you know what: if there were only people like you, there would be no employment in world. This makes our boss greater than we can ever proclaim him to be. Anyway, I’m no longer sure who owns your cows, Fasana. Something inside my heart asks: what if your cows are actually your wife’s?’

Fasana’s temper flared, and his voice rose. ‘I told you to keep my wife out of it. If your boss wants to talk to me, he should wait. I will go see him soon.’

‘Relax, Fasana,’ Ratsube said. ‘The boss probably means no harm. I mean no harm either. Actually, I’m glad that you have returned to work. You and us are not that different, you know; we’re in the same business, unless you want to make it an issue that you’re an owner and we work for someone else.’

Fasana hesitated: it was true: the boys worked for Sghubhu, and he owned his own cows, but still they were in the same business: that of looking after cows.

‘How did it go yesterday?’ Ratsube said. ‘You and the boss mingle with the top guys, the political top guys.’

Fasana knew that Ratsube had no courage to ask his boss this. He wanted to bring this issue up, but the tension had lowered a bit, so he didn’t make it an issue. ‘The same old,’ he said.

‘Great,’ Ratsube said. ‘Politicians have no use for us this year. Last year, especially the year before, they were chasing after us for our votes. Now, where are they? They only call the owners to fancy meeting.’

Only if Ratsube knew that the meetings were not fancy, thought Fasana. ‘Actually, I am against the government,’ Fasana said. ‘But tell me: how did the grazing go yesterday?’

Ratsube explained: the cows had drank in the river as usual, the only problem being the cows that had disturbed Sghubhu’s crops. He explained that he had had to chase his cows from his boss’s yard since Mrs. Fasana could not.

‘I owe you big time,’ Fasana said.

‘Don’t worry about it, old man,’ Ratsube said. ‘But the boss still wants to see you.’

‘Maybe if I have some time, we can arrange something,’ Fasana said.

Mr. Fasana didn’t know whether to be angry with his wife or the herdboys, but the herdboys had certainly upset him.

‘Ratsube tells me that you allowed the cows to graze in Sghubhu’s yard,’ that evening.

‘I had a lot on my mind,’ Mrs. Fasana replied. ‘Cows are curious by nature; opportunistic, too: the minute you are distracted, you’ll hear people shouting at you to come remove your cows from their yard.’

‘Now, we are going to have more on our minds since Sghubhu’s wants to have a word with me. I can imagine he is angry where he is.’ I’ll have to pay him money for the fine.’

‘Maybe it’s about time you showed him you are not scared of him, and not pay him anything,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

Fasana responded that once he stopped paying fines, people would not pay him fine when their livestock ate his crops.

‘Sghubhu gets away with harassing us baba ka Noku,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘Actually, in this case we are the ones harassing Sghubhu. I would rather not have this case involve the chief.’

Having said this, Fasana launched into another issue: that of Mthombo’s visit. Would she make sure that Noku would be there when Mthombo and his grandson, Zondwe, showed up, Fasana asked, an instruction really. Mrs. Fasana liked to be asked.​ ‘The other time you were saying that you do not want to sell your cows often,’ she said. `

Mr. Fasana explained the situation: ‘We have to pay the fine for the cows eating Sghubhu’s crops. On the other hand, many of our debtors are not paying up: Philisi was supposed to pay on the 15^th. Nhlamvu is struggling to get him to pay.’

‘You should be tougher on them,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

There was some double standards in what his wife was saying, but it was better to let the issue pass. ‘You will remember that Mthombo recently lost his sister. How could I say no when he needs another beast? That would be asking for the ancestors’ wrath.’

Mrs. Fasana said that Mthombo was not their biggest customer since for the funeral, his family had bought from other dealers. ‘There is something you are not telling me: your enthusiasm for Mthombo and you wanting Noku to be around on the day. Anyway, when are they coming?’

Saturday, Fasana answered.

Mrs. Fasana then said: ‘One of these good you will have to tell me why the sudden interest.’

Why keep it longer, Mr. Fasana asked himself, then deciding to say: ‘His grandson, Zondwe, is of an initiation age.’

‘I knew there was something to this,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘I just hope it’s the full story.’

‘It is,’ Fasana said.

‘Time will tell. I wonder why our daughter must be there,’ Mrs. Fasana said, then moving onto another issue: ‘I called that american lady and told her to stop bothering you. I told her to stop calling you.’

‘I had forgotten about her,’ Fasana said.

Fasana wanted to deal with the Sghubhu issue before Saturday. His plan was to go to Sghubhu’s place on Friday, but as if the two men had similar plans, Sghubhu instead showed up a Fasana’s place. The visit happened before eight in the morning before Fasana could take his cows out. The two men knew each other’s habits. This was no neighborly, or friendly, visit, and there was no reason to be hopeful, but Fasana had a tiny part of him that wanted things to be okay. On Tuesday the weather had been perfect, but Friday was different. The weather, Mr. Fasana had felt, walking in his yard before Sghubhu’s arrival, was not uplifting, no sun that day.

Sghubhu was welcomed by Mrs. Fasana who showed him in. ‘Welcome,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘I’ll make you something to eat.’ She then proceeded to the kitchen, leaving Sghubhu and Fasana.

Sghubhu did not waste any time, going for the attack. ‘You have made it your business to work against me,’ Sghubhu said.

Hopeful before the attack, Fasana was stunned by Sghubhu’s words. As soon as he had heard them, his mind began processing what he had just heard. The initial reaction was shock and appraisal. ‘So I was wrong to think that this man, Sghubhu, would change’, he thought. The words seemed to make Fasana freeze. His tummy turned. He remembered the unsavoury chat he had with Sghubhu’s herdboy on that day.

‘This abuse from your herdboys–’ Fasana said, being cut by Mrs. Fasana, who had prepared the thing for Sghubhu.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Fasana: you are very kind,’ Sghubhu said.

‘Alright, gentlemen, let me leave you to it,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

When Mrs. Fasana left, Sghubhu answered Fasana on the issue of his herdboys. Fasana had been cut by his wife, but Sghubhu seemed to have had got the whole gist of it. ‘They think they are on your level. Why not let someone takeover?’ he asked. ‘Someone like Nhlamvu and be like me: be off the radar.’

‘A real man takes care of his own cows,’ Fasana said. ‘I will pay your fine, so there we are: you got what you came for; now the prudent thing to do – the safe thing for you – is to leave. Back off now!’

‘Actually, I didn’t come for the money since I know that you have no option but pay. The main reason I’m here is Mthombo.’

Fasana’s heart beat faster. ‘What about Mthombo?’

Sghubhu explained: Mthombo would be getting his cows from him, and his grandson would join his school. Again, Fasana was in a state of shock and appraisal. ‘Now, you are venturing into unsafe territory,’ he said.

‘That has been your strategy,’ Sghubhu said. ‘But my strategy is peace since Mthombo decided this on his own.’

‘He’s already signed with me,’ Fasana said.

‘A signature is nothing,’ Sghubhu said. ‘But like I said, I am a man of peace: you can sell him cows, but the grandson belongs to me.’

‘Do I look like I am a man to do what another man wants me to do?’ Fasana asked. ‘My objective in life is to take care of my family first.’

‘For once, our objectives match,’ Sghubhu said. ‘Since you spurn my offer, I will double the fine you owe me for your cows eating my crops. Failure to do that, the matter goes to the chief. I enjoyed the hospitality.’

When Sghubhu left (it was after eight now), but Fasana waited a while before he could take his cows for grazing. What was he to do – be stubborn or try something in the way of mending their rivalry? Maybe it was better that the rivalry deepened and stayed this way than be resolved, he thought, but it was best if it did not reach the chief, for if it reached the chief, who knew who else it might reach? The police maybe. Yes, the rivalry could stay, but Fasana had to pay. ‘Let it widen’, Fasana thought. How could he want better relations with a newbie who ran an institution like it was a modern institution, rather than purely run it on traditional rules and values? The distance between them was needed unless he wanted to tarnish his methods, reputation and legacy.

There was more bad news for him when Nhlamvu came up to him when he was grazing the cows near the church.

Later that day (in the evening), Fasana’s heart cheered as his son and family arrived from KwaMhlanga for the weekend.

‘How are you, father?’ his son asked him when the pair got to chat.

‘Things are okay,’ Fasana said. ‘We can’t complain. How is work? And how is the family.’

‘It was a busy one,’ Mpiyabo said, telling him about his trip to Kwamhlanga.

‘A man has to work,’ Fasana said, also telling him how his affairs went that week: he had almost fought with Nzulu, the cows had eaten Sghubhu’s crops, and Nhlamvu was battling to get creditors to pay. But, there was still hope, Fasana said, telling his son about Mthombo’s pending visit on Saturday, the following day. Fasana dipped in and out of this and that issue, but the heavier stuff would be entertained on Sunday.

After Mthombo had arrived with Zondwe in his silver Mercedes that Saturday, he was soon shown the bulls by Fasana and dined by the lovely Mrs. Fasana that Saturday, the two men got into another chat.

‘Fasana, your family is a lovely Ndebele family,’ Mthombo said.

‘It’s a great honour for my family to extend ubuntu to a man of your calibre,’ Fasana said. ‘You know the Mthombos and the Fasanas go way back.’

‘I know,’ Mthombo said. ‘Your ancestors and mine were the original founders of Kwaggafontein.’

Fasana laughed: the conversation was going his way, but it was a tense one. ‘You see, people like Sghubhu only arrived yesterday.’

‘Oomafikizolo!’ It was time for Mthombo to laugh; but he then said: ‘Sghubhu’s offers are good, but I fear that his family does not have ubuntu such as yours.’

‘I am glad to hear that,’ Fasana said.

‘What’s more, Sghubhu does not have a beautiful daughter such as yours. I was looking at her and my grandson. They seemed at ease with each other. Zondwe will become a man here at your school, Fasana.’

‘You have made a wise decision,’ Fasana said.

‘I will look up to you to also make wise decisions in our future dealings,’ Mthombo said. Fasana nodded. Mthombo continued: ‘I hate to lose. What I want, I get. What’s good for me is good for you.’

‘I have always wanted a son who listens to what I want, not what he wants,’ Fasana said.

‘Then my grandson won’t disappoint you,’ Mthombo said. ‘By giving you my grandson, I’m giving you a docile son-in-law. You can mould him how you please. What else needs discussing will have to wait after the cleansing ceremony monthend.’

‘My family will be there,’ Fasana said.

‘I expected no less,’ Mthombo said before leaving with his grandson.

The issue of Noku and Zondwe’s arranged marriage was beefing up, reason why Fasana was delighted when Mrs. Fasana began talking about their daughter that evening when their visitors had lleft, but his joy ws shortlived since Mrs. Fasana was more interested in the education possibilities of her daughter. In turn, Mrs. Fasana was disappointed since she thought that this Saturday was an opportune time to talk things out.

‘I think we have been evading this discussion for a long time,’ Mrs. Fasana said to her husband. ‘2002 is coming. Noku has to decide which university to take.’

‘Don’t you think it is better to discuss her trip to Enyokeni Royal Palace in September?’ Fasana asked, alluding to Noku and her virginity. If he was to get good lobolo, she had to pass the test. His fear was giving the groom’s family what he thought of as a virgin, and having the daughter stun the husband by showing dexterity and sexual innovation in bed. That way, the family would be standing on solid ground say they demanded the lobolo back.

‘Babakhe! Those are issues for women to discuss!’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘What we have to discuss now is where she’ll go for university.’ Perhaps he could talk to her, and tell her this: ‘Don’t ever let your new husband, when the day comes to it, see how sexually adept or innovative you are in bed. Really prove to him that you are a virgin by not doing anything in bed’, but there was probably no way he would come to say this since Mrs. Fasana had just told him that such discussions were for women. Ordinarily

‘Then that discussion is over,’ Fasana said. ‘It is a very short one. I have made up my mind: Noku is not going to university.’

‘That’s a complete shift, babakhe – from having to discuss where our daughter will have to go for university. That’s a dramatic U-turn.’

‘What is the point of her going to university when I want her to get married after high school?’ Fasana asked.

‘I have too many questions: when did we agree that she is getting married in 2002 and how is she to dump marriage when her economic future is uncertain? We know that Matjibi is dead broke: if Noku does not go to university, she won’t be able to provide for the family.’

‘Forget that poor kid that’s playing games with our daughter,’ Fasana said. ‘I have a well-off suitor in mind.’

‘Oh, so she’s getting married to somebody else?’ the surprised lady Fasana asked. ‘I cannot wait to see who the new suitor is. Tell me: what’s his name?’

‘How I wish I was in the mood for too many questions. But I’ll tell in due time.’

‘Well, if you don’t answer them now, you might find yourself in a position where I’ll be in no mood to listen to even a single answer or plea that comes out of your mouth.’

When Fasana slept that night, he dreamt his wife telling this: ‘Our daughter – she’s not getting married anytime soon.’

In the dream, Fasana told his lady this: ‘The matter is not up to us to decide. Mthombo calls the shots. We have to give him what he wants.’

‘Our daughter?’

‘Makoti. When we give him what he wants, we get what we need: we get a son-in-law, a son we never had in Mpi.’

‘You hate my children, don’t you?’

‘Our children have to be taken good care of. The boy’s father has a good job in the city and earns good money.’

‘So, it’s all about the money to you, my husband?’

‘Consider what the father’s money can do: since, as Mthombo tells me, the kid stopped school in grade 11, the father wants him to build a farm here in Shobane.’

‘What you are saying is that a modern couple can base their economic lives on no education? The two will be uneducated if Noku does not go to university.

‘A new couple can kickstart a new family in one go,’ Fasana said. ‘Look at us: we have no education but we don’t starve; our child wears good, eats good; we took the elder one to university.’

‘Yes, we have indigenous intelligence,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘But I do not want that risk for my daughter. I want her to be better than me.’

‘Your daughter should be as good as you,’ Fasana said. ‘We will arrange that Noku gets a third of the cows. I see no reason why a family cannot build some future with cows.’

When the Sunday came, the younger Fasana had the books open, and the two men sat by the kraal. Last Sunday, Fasana had been on many occasions made mental notes to speak to Mpi about Noku, but the telephone call from the United States of America by some lady called Sophie Khumbule had prevented all of that. Later, he had managed to raise he issue with Mrs. Fasana and Mpiyabo, but the mother and son had seen right through him. He had to come up with a new strategy, a thing that had been on his mind as he walked to Nhlamvu that perfect morning, a day only to be disturbed by Nzulu who called him a little binder, but Fasana had promised to ‘fasa’ him. Nhlamvu had intervened and the pair had washed a bad day off their minds by having copious amounts of beer at the event, on Tuesday waking up with a terrible babalas, but at least that Monday he had chatted with Mthombo, a man who still lived isikhethu. This Sunday, it was better to start with Noku.

‘I want you to speak with Matjibi,’ he said. ‘I want you to put some good brains in that kid’s empty brains.’

‘Is it really necessary that I be the one who does this – I mean, speak to to Matjibi?’ Mpiyabo asked. He was thinking that Noku was not an important topic of that discussion, with the most important thing being the state of affairs in regard to the numbers on their list. But Fasana thought otherwise. ‘Unless you are not a real Fasana,’ the father said. ‘A real Fasana would not consent to the relationship – unless you are not my blood. We are gone if we allow that kid to deflower your sister.’

‘Father, last you talked about her moving in with us in KwaMhlanga, now I must talk to her boyfriend to deter him. I am confused.’

‘If you are confused, then you have to give me your ears,’ Fasana said. ‘Those were your words. Unless you are not a real–’

Mpiyabo knew where this was going, so he interrupted his father, agreeing to go warn the kid: ‘I will go talk to him then.’

‘I am glad,’ Fasana said, with a little bit of renewed respect for his son. ‘If you begin to see things the way I see them, soon you will realize that the traditional way of doing things is the best way.’

‘Now, onto the bigger stuff: how are we doing with the list – any changes I should key in?’

‘The numbers are dwindling, but I am doing all I can to keep the parents and guardians happy,’ Fasana said.

‘That’s great,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Mthombo and his grandson were all smiles yesterday.’

‘I want to keep it that way,’ Fasana said cheerfully, but his cheerful face turned into a calculated and icy frown. ‘However, I have no choice but to disappoint you, son: the matter of digitization fails for two reasons: one, it’s against our culture; two, we just don’t have the money to feed computers.’ Fasana explained that Nhlamvu was struggling to get people to pay – that and the fine and the possibility or Nokuphila going to university, even though he was opposed to it.

‘We can still consider digitization if we rethink Nhlamvu’s salary,’ the younger Fasana said.

The father was alarmed. ‘How can we rethink a man’s job?’ Fasana asked.

‘Maybe if he gets paid on commission, he’ll pull his socks up,’ the younger Fasana said.

‘Like mother, like son,’ Fasana said. ‘Your mother thinks he could be stronger. At the same time, she gets scared when Nhlamvu uses stronger tactics.’

‘A man must earn what he brings to the table,’ the younger Fasana said.

‘Tha sounds logical to me, but what do you want Nhlamvu to do – start killing people?’ Fasana asked, adding: ‘You know, we almost went to the police when Nhlamvu broke a man’s neck. Luckily, the issue was quickly solved.’

‘It doesn’t kill to address Nhlamvu’s salary issue,’ Mpiyabo. ‘Let’s help him help himself. In that way, we help ourselves.’

‘You could have spoken with him yesterday,’ Fasana said.

‘You cannot talk about man’s salary when he’s drunk, father. Not with a man like Nhlamvu.’

‘True: you can’t; but you do not really know the man. I enjoy his company, although I detest his mapantsularisms. Anyway, I am sure he is sober now.’

CHAPTER 4

There was little room for overthinking in Fasana’s life. You could win or lose, but winning or losing was no excuse to dwell on your gain or losses; you had to move, life being bigger than the daily squabbles.

‘What will you be wearing for the cleansing?’ Mrs. Fasana asked her husband.

Mr. Fasana answered that he would wear nicely since he wanted to solidify his links with the Mthombo family.

On the morning of the cleansing, on the last day of March 2021, a Saturday, Mr. Fasana told Nokuphila to sit next to Zondwe all the time. Nokuphila wanted to know why. Fasana told her that she would tell her in due time. Nokuphila told her father that she did not like Zondwe, her reason beng that she knew little about Zondwe, having met the guy a few times only.

‘Using the ceremony to get to know each other,’ Fasana said.

‘I enjoy Matjibi’s company. I will be sitting with him all the time, father.’

Mr. Fasana wanted to ask ‘Why do you like to sit with low company, dear child?’, instead, he said: ‘Why do you enjoy Matjibi’s company?’

‘I love him!’

‘Acquaint yourself with Zondwe; you will learn to love him.’

‘I’ll learn to despise him.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ Fasana said. ‘Give the boy a chance. If you could find a place for Matjibi in your heart, you can learn to accommodate Zondwe.’

‘Alright, father.’

‘That is my girl, right there. Fasana to the core; Fasana in and out. Here’s your brother ready to leave,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Mother’s already in the car.’ The six of them would travel to the Mthombo household in Mpiyabo’s car.

When Fasana’s family arrived at the Mthombo household, Mthombo warmly welcomed them showing them where to go and sit. To Fasana, Mthombo said: ‘Look, it’s going to be very busy today. I won’t be able to chat with you for long, but how are you and how is the deal?’ Fasana responded that he was still fixing the issue with the wife.

‘Alright,’ Mthombo said. ‘I am glad to hear that. New progress will be appreciated. Anyway, I have good news for you, Fasana: I’ve told the guy who slaughtered the cows to put aside one skin for you. When the skin’s dry, Zondwe will bring it to you personally.’

‘You are a great man,’ Fasana said. ‘I see the usual faces are here.’

‘Well, you can engage with the men while I get myself busy.’

God forbid, there was his enemy, Sgubhu and his wife, the beautiful Mrs. Sghub’esimhlophe. Would he talk to him? No, he would not.

‘Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful ceremony, grootman.’ Nhlamvu appeared out of the blue. Fasana nodded. Nhlamvu went on: ‘I have just seen Lokote. I will talk to him. Get something out of him.’ Lokote owed Fasana for a cow he had taken.

‘Ruffle his feathers a bit,’ Fasana said. ‘It’s been more than two weeks; the family’s starting to complain. Mpi has been balancing the books. They are not looking healthy. He says he needs to talk to you about salary cuts and so on.’

‘The day has just turned sour,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘The day’s no longer mooi with this talk of cuts.’

‘Wait until Mpi talks to you about it,’ Fasana said. ‘I told him this is not something to be talking to a man about.’

‘I will need more than strong words whe I talk to Philisi.’

‘Play it safe,’ Fasana said. ‘Let’s go sit with the men and have some mqombothi.’

‘Beer has never been a bad idea,’ Nhlamvu said, the pair going to sit with the men.

Whenever Fasana could, he cast his eyes on Matjibi. He didn’t want the kid anywhere near Nokuphila. But his heart was very glad when he saw Mpiyabo drag the kid away during the ceremony: it was high time somebody rmindeed the kid of his station in life. Fasana’s worry, though, was that Mpiyabo should not be so reckless the minute he found a chance to speak with Nhlamvu about his salary and commission. Nhlamvu was a proud man – proud and bold, he was not a man who hesitated in defending what was his. Nhlamvu was not Matjibi. He believed that he was made for higher things in life. Of course, most people in life, thought Fasana, believed that they were destined for greater things, but some men – men like Nhlamvu – did not baulk down at obstacles.

The day and ceremony went well. Sometime during the ceremony, when nobody was expecting anything like it, an oral poet started like an announced rain. His name was Valo, and people had cheered him on as he relayed his messages. The only controversial event took place later that day when Lokote was transported away in an ambulance, Nhlamvu going his own way in a police van. It was in the morning on Sunday, the 1^st of April, when Fasana and Mpiyabo could talk to Nhlamvu at the police station, Mrs. Fasana and some Shobane villagers having gone to the clinic, Noku and Mpiyabo’s wife and kid being the only people left at the Fasana household. Ordinarily, Hlamvu’s wife would have gone to the clinic as well, but since it was her husband, she went with Fasana and Mpiyabo to the police station.

‘You’ve put my husband in hell!’ Nhlamvu’s wife said as Mpiyabo drove to the police station.

‘He will be out in no time,’ Fasana said. ‘Like he never went there at all!’

‘He needs a good lawyer to get him out of there,’ Nhlamvu’s wife said.

‘Our finances don’t allow us to use the services of a private lawyer,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘State lawyers will have to do for your husband.’

‘State lawyers are very good,’ Fasana said, happy that his son was conscious of money.

‘I, too, would recommend government lawyers if it wasn’t my husband in there,’ Nhlamvu’s wife said. ‘But you can’t let him down like that when he makes you lots of money.’

‘Actually–’ Mpiyabo wanted to set things straight about Nhlamvu making them lots of money, but his father cut him: ‘Do not go there, son. Do not.’ To Nhlamvu’s wife, Fasana said: ‘Tuesday is around the corner. I am confident he will get bail.’

‘Tuesday is too late,’ Nhlamvu’s wife said. ‘If he had a private lawyer, he would not even have slept in a cell.’

‘The best we can hope for is a state lawyer,’ Fasana said. It was the least he could do have done: pay his friend and employee a visit in his time of great despair. Besides seeing Nhlamvu, the trip allowed them to give him toiletries and money. Fasana had suggested cigarettes as well, but Nhlamvu’s wife had disagreed, saying that she wouldn’t mind Nhlamvu being locked up forever if jail would stop him from smoking and drinking. However, Fasana told her that Nhlamvu had told him that inmates had more reasons to smoke and drink than not. Then it made sense, Nhlamvu’s wife said, that he get out as soon as possible – yesterday, actually.

The mood continued to eerie that Sunday at Fasana’s. it was as if someone had died. On returning from the police station without Nhlamvu, Fasana found Mthombo waiting for him, having been hosted by Mpiyabo’s wife and Nokuphila.

‘I had so much hope that our relationship would start on a positive note,’ Mthombo said. ‘Now your man had to commit that heinous crime at my sister's cleansing ceremony. What happened yesterday makes me doubt our alliance.’

‘Your family is now my family, and what happened was me trying to bolster my wealth – our wealth. You are now part of the business; part of the family.’ At this point, Fasana was feeling guilty that he was a free man, yet his achuzi was in detention. Perhaps he could have done more to stop the police van from taking him away, he thought. When the police had shown up during his skirmish with Nzulu, Nhlamvu had said that he would stick to his side.

‘Fasana, what you are telling me does not excuse the fact that Nhlamvu should have conducted that dirty business on another less serious occasion, not at my sister’s ceremony.’

‘Here’s the reality, Mthombo: your family seems to have bad luck running in its veins. You can blame me, blame Nhlamvu or blame your sister’s ex, but these things are controlled by God and the ancestors.’

‘It’s this bad luck that dashes my hopes,’ Mthombo said, Fasana responding this way: ‘I would not sabotage our relationship for anything. You must understand that there is a dirty side to this business. I don’t like it but it’s the nature of this business.’

‘I like to play things clean,’ Mthombo said. ‘Your man Nhlamvu looks like he has an appetite for clumsiness. However dirty your business, I will consider myself a failure if I end up where he is now. I am a family man. Many people depend on me, Fasana.’

‘You and I are family men,’ Fasana said. ‘But do you see me locked up in a police cell? Nhlamvu will be out in no time. He expects us to do our part.’

‘You talk as if you didn’t see how badly injured Lokote was yesterday.’

‘Lokote could have prevented this from happening had he paid his debt for the cow he took,’ Fasana said, adding that his wife and Mpiyabo had put pressure on him, Sghubhu’s fine also playing a role. ‘But we just have to wait for updates from the hospital. You can come here again tomorrow, and I will have those updates for you.’

Mthombo said that he thought they would rather find the time to chat in his car on their way to the government sessions in Kwaggafontein on Monday, tomorrow. Fasana agreed with this idea, his mind suddenly focussing on the 2^nd of April 2001, April being the last month of the government sessions, putting in his mind that he would end them riding in Mthombo’ car. There would be no walks to Nhlamvu’s. The walks to Nhlamvu’s would be replaced by walks to Mthombo’s, Mthombo being his new partner in crime.

Not knowing where to start their discussion that Sunday, Mpiyabo raised the issue of the poet, Valo, revealing to his father that he had found time to speak to the poet some time after his performance.

‘Valo’s poetry made me more and more realize the importance of poetry in our culture,’ Mpiyabo said to his father. Of course, the bigger issue here was Nhlamvu who they had left at the police station in the morning, but what more could they do? What more could they say?

‘I did not pay much attention to Valo,’ Fasana said, his mind elsewhere.

‘Surely, you would agree that poetry is central to our culture?’ the younger Fasana asked, trying very hard not to get into Nhlamvu.

‘Central – how?’ Fasana asked. ‘Praise poets are becoming more Western day by day, appearing on TV and in the media. It is sickening! Anyway, what was Valo speaking about?’

‘Father!’ cried Mpiyabo. ‘If you were not really paying attention as you are telling me, surely you’ll benefit from the recording I made of Valo’s poem. Not knowing what the poem said is the challenge we have during ingoma. After the practice, amasokana cannot remember the poems they composed. Valo was telling me how he started: he started the way the great Sovetjeza started. He told me that recording the oral praises of poets is not new. Sovetjeza got his start by recording the poems he heard around him. So, father why do you oppose what I want to do when it’s not taboo? What I want to do has been done before.’

‘I doubt that,’ Fasana said. ‘You are not a poet. When Valo went around recording poems, he did that because he was preparing himself for the job. Look back at his career: many decades ago, he performed at the chief’s wedding when he was a young man; with his famous poetry televised during the last elections. So, you might not be the first person to record Ndebele praise poetry, but you are definitely the first person who wants all masokana to have their poetry recorded. I draw the line there. Valo can have his poetry recorded – he wants the fame and money; my initiates are not in it for the fame or money. A poet motivated by money is a violent poet.’ Finally: there was no way they could not get into the Nhlamvu issue again.

‘I would say a poet motivated by fame and money is actually more peaceful than Nhlamvu,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘What would you say motivates him?’

‘What else can influence a crude man than money and fame?’ Fasana asked.

‘Money that’s owed to us,’ Mpiyabo said.

‘That’s right,’ Fasana said. ‘And the fame of being a gangster. I’m just happy that he didn’t lash out the violence on you when you spoke to him yesterday. I was thinking that Nhlamvu would take you for a small boy like Matjibi.’

‘I know how to talk, father,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘I told him to shape up or ship out nicely.’

‘I’m glad you did especially after what happened.’

‘Yeah, Nhlamvu is a brute,’ Mpiyabo said.

‘But we are not as innocent and blameless as Nhlamvu,’ Fasana said. ‘We are just as dirty; it’s just that we play it clean.’

‘Don’t go there, father,’ Mpiyabo said.

‘I saw you drag the kid away yesterday,’ Fasana said.

‘I told him to stay away or face kissing his journey into manhood goodbye.’

‘I am glad that you did your duty as a brother.’

‘But can you believe it?’ Mpiyabo said. ‘I remove the kid from my sister, and I see another kid get cosy with her. I wanted to drag Zondwe as well.’

‘Zondwe is a good kid,’ Fasana said. ‘I do not mind him getting closer to Noku.’

‘Father!’ Mpiyabo said. ‘What is the story here?’

‘The story will play out naturally, and you will get to know soon. I need to take a pee; I will be back just now.’

When Fasana turned a corner at the kraal, Mpiyabo was left looking at Valo’s poem once more:

Ngiyabingelela, bantu be-Shobane Village,

Ngingu-Valo,

Ukuzikhakhazisa kwe-Kwaggafontein,

Umvikeli wakho lokha ipilo nayiba budisi begodu ibe budisi.

Mthombo,

Umthombo wokuphila,

Umthombo wesiTjhaba.

Indodakazi yakho oyithandako yahamba msinyana,

Ukusitjhiya sigubuzelwe lusizi.

Sikhalele ukulahlekelwa kwakhe,

Indodakazi ethandekako, umzali ozinikeleko.

Sihlonipha ithando lakhe eenhliziyweni zethu,

Bese uphendukela ethandweni lakho elingenamkhawulo,

Ukulungisa iinhliziyo zomndeni wakhe,

Ukuphakamisa labo abatjhiye ngemva.

Banike amandla wokukghodlhelela,

Basekele ngomusa wakho,

Yenza bona bangavumi njengombana baragela phambili.

Sula iindlela zabo,

Begodu ukhanyise amalanga wabo.

‘I have managed to get Mthombo promise me that Zondwe will become a man here,’ Fasana said on his return.

‘That’s great,’ Mpiyabo. ‘But, wait: is that why you want Noku and Zondwe closer?’

Fasana asked: ‘Like mother, like son: why are you always sceptical? Why can't you just accept what you are told without questioning things?’

‘Okay, father.’

‘Right. You should be happy that I am making clients stick with us. That is the capital thing, not how I cobble things together. How I cobble things together is my secret sauce, a sauce that should be respected.’

Mpiyabo laughed. It had been a horrible two days. A laugh wouldn’t kill even if you were being roasted or toasted.

So unusual was that day that when Sophie called from the US, trying her luck – forcing it, really – not expecting anybody to pick the phone up, she was surprised to get someone talking to her. It was Noku.

‘You are Fasana’s daughter?’ Sophie said at some point, wanting to make sure she had heard right. ‘I didn’t know Fasana had a daughter, but it’s nice speaking with you. Do you think there’s a chance I can get to speak with your father?’

‘Not if my mother has anything to do with it,’ Noku said.

‘I’m surprised that anybody picked up at all,’ Sophie said. ‘She called me the other time telling me not to call, reason I’m happy you are the one that picked up.’

‘There has been a bad incident here in the village,’ Noku said. ‘It happened yesterday: a man was assaulted, and my parents are involved.’

‘It’s a fascinating story,’ Sophie said. ‘However, what should I call you? I’m Sophie Khumbule. I’m with the deparment of sociology and cultural affairs.’

‘It’s a sad story,’ Noku said. ‘Call me Noku – that’s Nokuphila. I’m in my last year of high school.’

‘Great, Noku,’ Sophie said. ‘Surely, you have plans to go to university or tertiary?’

‘Most definitely.’

‘Going to university gives you a great headstart in life,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m the first one in my family to go to university.’

‘My brother was the first,’ Noku said. ‘Perhaps you can tell me how it was to be the first person in your family. My brother lives in town, and when he’s home, he usually talks about important stuff with dad.’

‘Well, I was not only the first, but female at that,’ Sophie said.

‘Now, what do you want to talk to about with father? I heard you are a researcher.’

‘I want to learn more about ingoma when I come back to South Africa next year. Never mind me, but I’m curious as to why you even picked up the phone.’

‘I rarely get to talk to somebody.’

‘That shouldn’t be true or right,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m sure there’s someone you can talk to; someone you can share your inner feelings with.’

‘Matjibi is about my only friend, but my father despises him.’

‘He despises your friends? And your mother: do you confide in her?’

‘Matjibi is a special friend. He’s my boyfriend. But you are right: I shouldn’t be opening up my private life with a stranger.’

‘Look, the fact that you want to go to university gives you a great head start in life as I was saying,’ Sophie said. ‘And while I'm glad that you are giving me information on how to reach your father, our interactions can also be meaningful for you.’

‘I doubt our interactions have any future,’ Noku said. ‘Mother will not be happy to hear about our interactions. I’m just doing this ’cause I want to annoy my dad for forcing me to bond with Zondwe.’

‘Who’s Zondwe?’

‘Some guy in our village, but I’d rather not say more about him. So you want to talk to my dad about coming to Shobane?’

‘That’s more or less what I want, but first I have to speak to him. Can you allow me to call you in the future when I want to talk to him?’

‘Secret calls, you mean?’

‘Something like that, yes, but not really secretive.’

‘Look, I can arrange for you his friend’s number. You can call him when he’s there and mom’s not around. His name is Nhlamvu. Call again in five minutes.’

‘You think I can get Nhlamvu if I call now?’ Sophie asked after five minutes.

‘No,’ Noku said. ‘The police took him yesterday. He’s the guy responsible for the bad incident I was talking about.’

‘Oh!’ Sophie remarked. ‘Where is your father right now?’

‘He’s outside speaking to Mpiyabo.’

After Mpiyabo and his family had returned for KwaMhlanga, Mrs. Fasana remarked to her husband: ‘Women are incredible; I don’t understand them.’

The bemused Fasana returned: ‘You do not understand yourself – is that what you are telling me?’

‘How dare you, my dear husband!’ Mrs. Fasana exclaimed. ‘That’s egregious behaviour: you’re mocking me for being a woman!’

If Fasana had been bemused by his wife’s earlier statement, he was beyond that now, as the two prepared to sleep after a long day and weekend. ‘You say you do not understand yourself, yet you get angry when I say your words back.’

‘You should have asked which woman I was talking about,’ Mrs. Fasana said. When Fasana asked she said that the woman she had been talking about was Lokote’s wife and her theatrics earlier that day at the hospital. What had she done? Fasana was really curious now.

Mrs. Fasana explained: ‘She was praying out loudly for her husband to die so she could kill Nhlamvu in return.’

‘She is indeed an incredible woman,’ Fasana said, adding that perhaps it was the reason why Lokote had not paid: perhaps his reason had been to put Nhlamvu in trouble.

‘It’s you he wanted in trouble,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘And Lokoto’s wife says that she’s coming here to have a strong with you.’

‘She must come; I’ll be waiting. I’m ready for her,’ Fasana said, adding: ‘A person I can safely say wants me troubled is Nhlamvu’s wife. She says that I am responsible for Nhlamvu’s arrest.’

‘I hope you set her straight,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘And I hope you also set Philisi’s wife straight. You cannot have women trample on you, Fasana.’

‘At times I did but you can imagine: I cannot go hard on her in this situation,’ Fasana said, adding that she had been surprised by Nhlamvu’s wife’s refusal to allow him to have cigarettes.

‘You are soft on women,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘How do you suggest that I be? You suggest that I be hard on you?’ Fasana said.

‘You can be hard on every woman out there, but soft on your wife,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘You are about the only woman I know and interact with,’ Fasana said.

‘Yet you have been to Kwaggafontein with another woman without me,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘I did not choose for all this to happen,’ Fasana said, adding that on Tuesday, he and Nhlamvu’s wife had to go once more to Kwaggafontein, this time for the bail hearing. ‘I cannot go without her.’

‘I’m coming with you this time,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘For what reason, really?’ Fasana asked.

‘I told you: women are incredible,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘You can never expect Nhlamvu’s wife to act normal on Tuesday. Also, I want to be there when she accuses you of sending her husband to prison. If she tries that nonsense, she will know who I am. Nhlamvu went to prison because he cannot control himself.’

‘She was normal today,’ Fasana said.

‘There you go: easy on her, but hard on me!’

’Alright, then,’ Fasana said. ‘You can come along.’

After this issue was settled, Mrs. Fasana asked Fasana what he would wear on the coming day. Fasana responded that he would wear a traditional Ndebele outfit.

‘Why change of mind from last time?’ Mrs. Fasana asked. Fasana answered that he did not want people to think that Mthombo was more traditional than he was.

‘It has never made any sense to me why you stand opposed to the government initiation school licences,’ Mthombo said on the 2^nd of April as he drove to Kwaggafontein with Fasana onboard

‘People with cars tend to think everyone must swallow their ideas’, Fasana thought. Instead, he said: ‘You clearly know little about ingoma, don’t you?’

‘I know a little, yes, but I have learned much from attending the government sessions.’

‘So your interest is educational?’ asked Fasana. ‘In other words, you just want to satisfy your curiosity?’

‘Not exactly true since my aim in attending these sessions was to start my own initiation school,’ Mthombo said.

‘So your plan was to outcompete me?’ Fasana said.

‘You are not the only initiation man in Shobane,’ Mthombo said.

‘I am the only legitimate one,’ Fasana said. ‘You cannot call Sghubhu’s initiation school an initiation school.’

‘Right now I am thinking of pulling back on that idea,’ Mthombo said. ‘By pulling back on, I do away with the competition I was going to heap on you.’

‘Well, you were never going to give me any competition,’ Fasana said. ‘Sghubhu is my so-called competition, but where is he now?’

‘Reason why I want it to stay that way,’ Mthombo said.

‘You think you are doing us a favour?’ Fasana asked.

‘I stay out of your business for you to stay in business. However, you can only stay in business if you take the government offer, otherwise your initiation school closes, and then I cannot have my grandson become a man through your school. It’s a double-whammy, really: if the government closes your school, Sghubhu’s will be the only one left, and I will be forced to take Zondwe elsewhere out of Shobane. If you stubbornly refuse the government offer, I will be forced to open my own school so to protect our interests, Fasana. Like I told you: I like to play things clean. On this one, I am on the government’s side, and you are on your own. You can play it clean, too, my man.’

‘I like to play it clean, too,’ Fasana said.

‘That’s not true,’ Mthombo said. ‘You have learned a lot of corrupt ideas from Nhlamvu: I saw you get into a skirmish with Nzulu last month. Nhlamvu is in a police cell today. It could have been you.’

‘That’s where you are wrong,’ Fasana said. ‘I am a free man because I live by my own ideas.’

When Lokoto’s wife went to confront Fasana at his home, she was welcomed by Mrs. Fasana who showed her where Fasana was, telling her where she could sit. Lokoto’s wife didn’t accept the welcome, saying: ‘If you knew what hospitality was, you would have left my husband alone. I came to say what I want to say; and I’ll do that without taking a seat.’ Mrs. Fasana noticed that Lokoto’s wife was carrying an envelope. On any good day, however, Mrs. Fasana would have shown her where to get off, but this was not any other day.

The commotion made Fasana raise his head. Seeing the man she was after, Lokoto’s wife said: ‘Do you have a stinking idea what harm you have brought on my poor husband, yet here you are, sitting here in the Fasana mansion as if hospitalizing my husband was the best thing you have ever done.’

Mr. Fasana looked sideways, his head being moved sideways and upwards, words refusing to come out of his mouth.

‘Our money built this mansion, yet when we can’t pay, you pay thugs to come beat us – worst of all, at a cleansing ceremony. Where is Ubuntu, Fasana, or when you have a little money, Ubuntu walks of the door? That’s wny people like us never want to be stinking rich. But here’s your money.’ After having said this, she threw an enveloped at Fasana, telling him to open it. Fasana opened the envelope, and he was amazed at the money.

‘That’s the money we owe you,’ Lokote’s wife said.

Finally, Fasana spoke. ‘All along you did not have money to pay me; now where do you get this?’

Lokote’s wife laughed a sardonic laugh. ‘Oh, so you thought we would always be poor!’

‘You are putting words in my mouth,’ Fasana said. ‘Anyway, I think that you have said enough. You can leave!’

‘Before I do that, you should know that Sghubhu is the only reasonable man left in Shobane. He’s the one that gave us the money.’ That was the name of the man Fasana loathed, a name that broke everything.

‘Im glad you showed her a no-nonsense attitude,’ Mrs. Fasana said when Lokote’s wife was gone. ‘But you should not have allowed her to go on and on in our house. No one has the right to yap nonstop in your house.

‘The woman's husband is in hospital.’

‘Yes, but the man he should be yapping at non-stop is not here. She was taking chances, the fool.’

CHAPTER 5

On Tuesday, the day of the bail hearing Fasana woke up without babalas. Such was the change of affairs that he genuinely asked his wife for coffee during breakfast. Noting the genuine change, Mrs. Fasana said: ‘A you like this is adorable and welcome everyday and everytime. I love you, Fasana. I wonder what has brought on this change’

‘Blame Mthombo,’ Fasana said. ‘He says no drinking during the week. There was no way he was going to drive us to the place. How I miss the inimitable Nhlamvu.’

‘Nhlamvu is right where he is; he belongs there and must stay there if I’m to have my husband back,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘I was wrong about Mthombo. I think he’s the best thing to happen to you this year.’

‘I’m glad you find him appealing,’ Fasana said. ‘Perhaps you should know: he thinks that I must accept the government offer.’

‘Great!’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘If you make people like Mthombo your friends, I can only forsee success.’

‘Well,’ Fasana said. ‘You would be glad to know that Zondwe is the suitor I have for Noku.’

‘Zondwe – Mthombo’s grandson?’

Fasana nodded, his wife saying: ‘Okay, so this is why Mthombo has been getting his sorry ass into our lives: he wants our daughter for his grandson? I don’t know what deal you made, but over my dead body will I allow you to have my daughter without our consent.’

‘You were singing his praises just minutes ago,’ Fasana said. ‘Yet you don’t want his grandson to have our daughter.’

‘Nhlamvu would be a million time better than that scoundrel.’

‘Strange,’ Fasana said. ‘You now find Nhlamvu appealing.’

‘He doesn’t prey on his friends’ daughters. A man like that should be cherished. I just knew you were not telling the full story,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘It would be insightful if you told me why you are opposed to Zondwe and Nokuphila, or you would rather have Nokuphila and Matjibi?’

‘You were never truthful about this whole matter to start with,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘Don’t you think you could have been honest and frank with me from the start?’

‘Wife,’ Fasana sighed. ‘Let’s not argue about this and cause Nhlamvu bad luck on the day of his bail hearing.’ After saying this, Fasana offered some instructions to Noku to watch the cows more closely when they grazed near Sghubhu’s house. Dressed up and ready to go, he and his wife waited for Nhlamvu’s wife to arrive.

The three of them (Fasana, Mrs. Fasana and Nhlamvu’s wife) would be going to Kwaggafontein to attend Nhlamvu’s bail hearing. Initially, Fasana had planned on going with Nhlamvu’s wife, leaving his wife to take care of the cows, but Mrs. Fasana, not piqued by his husband being in Fasana’s company on two consecutive days, thought it best to tag along – Noku had skipped school to tend the cows, Fasana’s word being that Noku must be extra careful and not let the cows eat anybody’s crops. Noku’s response was that since the cows were so many, coupled with her inexperience, she would fare just like her mama. Fasana’s response was that however powerless she was, Noku must do all she could to prevent the cows from nearing Sghubhu’s crops. Fasana said that it was better if the cows ate somebody’s crops, but not Sghubhu’s.

[Bail hearing]

‘What do you think of Lokote’s wife?’ Fasana asked Nhlamvu that Wednesday, the first day after his release. The two walked slowly and talked as Fasana watched his cows as they grazed. In the past few days, he had found no time to be with his beloved cows. He was making up for lost time, savouring the experience. One of the cows in close proximity held its head down, nibbling at the grass, wagging its tail, another battling the flies by flipping its head backward.

‘You know when you haven’t seen a woman for what seems like forever, every woman comes as the most beautiful,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Ordinarily, however, I have never been concerned about women’s beauty, and I’m sure you’re not asking about whether I find her–’

‘Oh, no,’ Fasana said, his hands in the pockets. He was standing still now. ‘My concern lies elsewhere: why would a woman like her be attracted to a man like Lokote?’

‘Well, you old guys say a man’s beauty is his cows,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘But, whatever makes a man attractive, surely love comes stronger.’

‘Or money,’ Fasana said, thinking that Nhlamvu did not know much about cows. ‘You have put your finger on it. You have anticipated my question: what did she see in a man who cannot pay for the cows he’s taken? A man with no cows is not fit to be called a man; worse a man who does not have money to pay for one cow, for example.’

‘It so happens that a man falls into a ditch from time to time.’ Nhlamvu said. ‘It’s not a man who has not experienced hard times.
It’s a man who knows hardships that gets my respect any time of the day.’

‘What if he has always been in a ditch from day one?’ Fasana asked. ‘This makes me even wonder how he managed to pay lobolo for the wife. How I loathe a man who finds comfort in a ditch. And imagine that’s the kind of man my wife wants our daughter to marry.’ Surrounded by nature and his cows, he felt invincible, just another South African man surrounded by large bovine. This made him small and big at the same time since he owned those cows. Invincible and proud.

‘If you’re talking about Matjibi, I’m also to blame since I convinced you to initiate him with him not being able to offer any cows, but it’s a blame I take nobly,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘In the case of Lokote’s wife, these days women provide lobolo for their husbands.’

‘What a strange world,’ Fasana said. It was not invincibility that was on the top of his mind, but the conversation he was having with his lieutenant, Nhlamvu. A man who let a woman pay lobolo for him – what strange world was that! A strange, disgusting world.

‘Not a strange world at all,’ Nhlamvu said, offering a different but personal perspective. ‘My own wife paid my lobolo for me.’

‘And don’t you think it makes you the wife?’ Fasana said.

‘If you do nothing afterwards,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘As for me, my deal was to pay her back as soon as I was back on my feet. I paid her every cent, so technically I paid paid for my own lobolo.’

‘And you know Matjibi wants my daughter after all I have sacrificed for him.’

‘That’s a bold young man,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘My advice to him is that he gets a job and save money for lobolo or have someone loan it to him.’

‘Or have him ask my daughter to loan him lobolo money? That would never happen,’ Fasana said. ‘For one, I don’t want my daughter working, so where would she get money to loan a sorry-ass man?’

‘Perhaps the country will move to a point where lobolo is unnecessary,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘That’s if you allow Matjibi to marry your daughter,’ Fasana said. ‘That’s if more boys turn into Matjibis. That’s if the modern man does not value culture. That is the reason, my friend, I want Noku to marry Zondwe.’

‘Mthombo’s grandson?’ Fasana said. ‘His father makes some good money.’

‘Not only that: the Mthombo family values tradition,’ Fasana said.

‘What about love?’ Nhlamvu asked. ‘Have you factored in love?’

‘I told Noku to learn to love Zondwe like he loves Matjibi,’ Fasana said. ‘That was on the day of Mthombo’s ceremony.’

‘The day I was arrested?’ Nhlamvu asked rhetorically.

‘Yes,’ Fasana answered sheepishly.

‘A lot of things happened that day,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘A lot of words were exchanged.’

‘Mpiyabo should have waited for another time to talk to you about the proposed pay cuts of his,’ Fasana said. ‘Mthombo was not happy that you hospitalized a man during his late sister’s cleansing ceremony. He scolded me about it.’

‘It seems that everything is now about Mthombo,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘If he’s not scolding you about me, he’s asking for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

‘I am doing this for my daughter’s benefit.’

‘What about my own wellbeing?’ Nhlamvu said. ‘I did the work, and the lady paid.’

‘She paid, but I’m not taking her money. Sghubhu is my enemy; I cannot take money from him. It’s about principles.’

‘So you and your son don’t value the work I have done? I don’t think it’s about principles; I think it’s about pride. Money is money, no matter who it comes from. If you don’t take it, that means I was arrested for mahala. You can afford to let go off the money, not me.’

‘The wisest decision you can make now that you’re out is go see Lokote in hospital and talk to him,’ Fasana said,

‘And talk to him about what?’ Nhlamvu said. ‘I have my own pride, you know.’

‘Principles, you mean? I admire that,’ Fasana said. ‘But his wife asked me where Ubuntu went when she was here.’

‘When she confronted you?’

‘And when she gave me the money; yes,’ Fasana said. ‘What I’m showing you here is that a man sticks to his principles.’

‘What I see here is a man who goes for what he doesn’t have, ignoring what he has; a man who wants to play things clean. I thought I our understanding was whatever it takes,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘The money is here; it’s not like we have to mine it. When I go to Lokote, what will he say – won’t he ask whether we have not received the money? He will think we have gone bananas. You tell me: are all these ideas coming from Mthombo?’ At that moment, Nhlamvu was thinking that if he didn’t have a relationship with Fasana, he would have robbed him live.

‘He’ll see it as Ubuntu; he’ll think we care,’ Fasana said. ‘I have done my best to get you home. On Sunday we visited you when you were locked up, while my wife had to leave everything and go to hospital with Lokote’s wife; and yesterday were with you at court.’

‘It goes without saying: I appreciate what you’ve done for me,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘But me and my wife are not happy that you and Mpiyabo would not hire a private lawyer.’

‘And give him what money?’ Fasana asked.

‘Look here: you are prepared to lose the money from Sghubhu. You could have used that money for a private lawyer.’

‘This thing will go away if you do things our way,’ Fasana said. ‘Mthombo wants me to do things cleaner, so do as I say: go see Lokote.’

Nhlamvu stubbed out his cigarette before entering the hospital premises that Thursday. Having to stub it out was a nauseating thing for him. He felt suffocated; more suffocating was that he was here to meet the effects of his crime, meeting a man he despised in a place he despised. He proceeded to the reception area where he asked to be shown where patient Lokote was, telling one of the nurses that he was the patient’s brother. Far away from the village, he was back in the city, Kwaggafontein, where a few days before he had been in detention.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Lokote said when he saw his visitor. Nhlamvu was the last person he had been expecting to see. His wife had told him of his arrest, and he was happy that he was there. However his reaction was the sort of reaction Nhlamvu had been expecting, and it delighted him. This was the first time the pair had ever met in the city. The last meeting had been in Shobane and had ended dangerously, Lokote in hospital where he was right now, Nhlamvu spending some nights in a police cell, but now under arrest no more – a free man, and taking care of business.

‘You are a despicable man; you’re lucky that I didn’t leave you for dead,’ Nhlamvu said, speaking in the same tone the man had given him. ‘Anyway, my boss sent me here. We have many things to talk about, many questions to ask, but a question I care deeply is why you let another man pay your bills.’

‘So, what – you are here to make sure that you kill me this time?’ Lokote asked, resignation planted on his face. ‘Do what you have come to do; I have no time to answer your questions. Why Sghubhu paid my debt is none of your business.’

‘That is not my business; it’s our business,’ Nhlamvu said, thinking that his knife had been confiscated by the police the night of his arrest. ‘What’s in it for him – does he want to show that he’s richer than Fasana?’ Yesterday he had been talking to his boss as he tended his cows; and now he was in the city still on his boss’s business. He hated hospitals, Nhlamvu. But everyone in his village had been here, even his wife when he was in detention. The fact that everyone had been here maddened him since only his wife and close acquintances like Fasana and his son had gone to see him at the cells. He looked at the man, helplessly lying on the hospital bed.

‘More than that,’ Lokote said. ‘He wants to make sure that you pay for your crime.’

‘And how do I pay for my crime,’ Nhlamvu asked: ‘End in jail? You have to be out of your mind. As soon as you can stop being a little kid and get out of that hospital bed, you are going to approach the court and drop the case.’ He had another knife, but he was yet to use it; he preferred weapons he had used before.

‘I cannot turn against Sghubhu,’ Lokote said. ‘I gave him my word that I’ll pursue justice to the end.’

‘If you want to get to Fasana, why go through me?’ Nhlamvu said.

‘I’m not interested in you at all,’ Lokote said. ‘You’re just like me: you have nothing.’

‘At least I can settle my own bills,’ Nhlamvu said, thinking that the other difference was that he was standing on his two feet while the poor man lay on a lousy bed. ‘Like a real man does.’

‘Where is this going?’ Lokote said.

‘Rumors are that your wife paid your lobolo.’

‘Absurd!’ cried Lokote. ‘Unlike you, I used to hold a proper job. Saved money to marry my woman, but then I lost my job, my wife then covering for me with the rest, a tiny bit.’

‘Try again and give me another story,’ Nhlamvu said, ready to leave. ‘Maybe this time you will tell me the real reason why you didn’t want to pay Fasana. Oh, wait, did you lose your job again whereas you still owed Fasana? Why didn’t your wife pitch in?’

‘After the ceremony for which I purchased cows from Fasana, my ancestors appeared to me in a dream showing me that I had been wrong in taking them from Fasana. In the dream, I told them that I still owed Fasana. I told them I would settle the debt and never again take his cows. For you to fulfil that promise of never taking bulls from Fasana, the ancestors told me they would create a rift between us, the rift bringing me closer to Sghubhu, whom they prefer. That’s the short of it.’

‘So, it was your mission all along not to pay Fasana?’ Nhlamvu laughed a bit, then continuing: ‘The rift doesn’t include Fasana alone. I’m in the picture, and your little rift should not lend me in prison. Here’s how you’ll play along: court resumes soon. I expect you to drop the case same day court resumes. By then you would have healed and back on your senses. Play your rift any other way that doesn’t include me.’

‘The only person who can tell me those words is Sghubhu, not you or Fasana. And the only people who can control what happens are my ancestors.’

‘You are lucky to be alive,’ Nhlamvu said and left, lighting another cigaretted as soon as he was out of that goddamned place. But as he made his way back to the village, he wondered why the man thought highly of Sghubhu when he was allowing him to rot in a public hospital? Perhaps he was just like Lokote, Nhlamvu thought: their masters preferred public institutions for them, but then Nhlamvu thought it was unfair Fasana doing this to him since he worked for him; as for Lokote, Nhlamvu thought it was perfectly justified for him to rot in a public hospital since he wasn’t Sghubhu’s employee.

Next time Fasana met Mthombo and he badgered him with the issue of the arranged marriage, he would tell him that, Let’s wait until September; first I want her to go for virginity testing; that’s in September. Let’s then give it a month, so in October your men can come over and initiate the lobolo process. But then Fasana thought Mthombo could ask if the wife had given the union her blessings. Am I not the man, Fasana could ask. But now Fasana had his wife to deal with; maybe he could get her to buy in into the arranged union.

‘I know you don’t want me talking about it, but you should be glad that I have put aside money for Noku’s travel to the royal palace,’ he said that evening.

‘Your interest in this matter is suspicious,’ Mrs. Fasana said. How come, Fasana wanted to know, saying that every father wanted their daughter to remain a virgin.

‘Yes, you are right to be interested,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘But your interest comes with an ulterior motive. Your interest is excessively suspicious. Sometimes I think it would have been best if Noku didn’t have to go there.’

‘You know that’s absurd.,’ Fasana said.

‘Not as absurd as your interest,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘I know she’s a virgin. She doesn’t have to go to KZN to prove herself. I know it.’

‘But you are not around her everyday.’

‘She tells me things.’

‘Does she tell you about Matjibi?’ Fasana asked. ‘Oh, no – forget I mentioned the poor kid’s name. She’s not doing this for you, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

Fasaa explained that a successful trip to the royal palace would be know by everybody, not just them.

‘And you’re doing all of this for Mthombo?’ Mrs. Fasana said.

Fasana then brought up the issue of Lokote. The man was poor that he let other men pay his bills. Did his wife want her daughter to be embarrassed by that, in a union with Matjibi.

‘I think you have a point,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘Lokote is a disgrace, but what’s important is that the wife loves him.’

‘What about his dignity and reputation?’ Mr Fasana asked.

The confrontation by Lokote’s wife was fresh on his mind that morning, but he was not gonna let the issue trouble him for days. He was attending a phone call with a client who was in the early stages of buying three bulls from him. The client would come and have a look at the bulls, but his concern was the logistics since he was out of town with Fasana having to arrange transportation, a thing he would have to discuss with Mpiyabo who was coming later today.

After the call, there was Nhlamvu. Fasana wanted the updates, but the updates had to be done as they took the cows for grazing, so until then small talk kept the two busy but at some point Fasana thought the man was taking his time to launch into the updates.

‘How did things go?’ Fasana asked.

‘The guy was hostile, and hate was on his face and in his words,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘But that’s the way I want it. Guy’s abominable.’

‘His wife confronting me the other day made my wife complain,’ Fasana said. ‘My wife thinks I’m soft, but what was I gonna do? The only thing I could do was show her where to get off. She’s a woman, and with women you can’t use force.’

‘You did right,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Force is the only language they respect and understand, just like the husband.’

‘But then we end up with a situation where you spend nights in a police cell and you have a trial hanging on your neck.’

‘The good comes with the bad,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘That’s not a new truth to you, I know.’

‘But you have to ask whether the bad’s the bad,’ Fasana said.

‘Speaking of it, I have been asking myself why the might Sghubhu allows his man to be in a public hospital. I mean his man does not deserve private care, but think about my case, I’m your man, and my wife and I were discussing how you refused a private lawyer for me.’

‘Funny how you think Lokote does not deserve private care whereas you think you deserve private legal services,’ Fasana said.

‘Don’t I deserve it?’ Nhlamvu said.

‘You deserve the best,’ Fasana said. ‘But that’s why I sent you to Lokote. Get him to drop the case, and you won’t need a penny for a private lawyer.’

‘That means we don’t have to take his money,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘I’m glad now your worldview aligns with mine,’ Fasana said. ‘Taking Sghubhu’s money is bad on all fronts.’

‘So you haven’t returned it?’ Nhlamvu said, Fasana saying that he still had the envelope with him.

‘Why don’t you give it to me so I can return it to Sghubhu?’

‘Don’t be hasty,’ Fasana said. ‘Do you think it’s that easy?’

‘Well, if we give him his money back, what hold can he have over us?’

‘That’s what I have to find out,’ Fasana said, telling Nhlamvu that Sghubhu had increased the fine he had to pay for the cows eating his crops.

‘What a sick bastard!’ Nhlamvu said, Fasana saying that the difficult in this issue was that maybe Sghubhu wanted more than he had just given them through Lokote’s wife.

‘It’s a tense situation better handled with care,’ Fasana said. ‘And I don’t think I have the money to sort that issue out, but let’s change the subject. There are many subjects under the sun to dwell on something that makes us think like we’re schoolkids.’

‘You are right,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘I need strong liquor.’

‘How did your trip to Kwagga on Monday go?’ Nhlamvu asked, having missed the sessions since he had been locked up. ‘Didn’t Nzulu treat you badly?’

‘The trip went well, it was a breeze,’ Fasana said. ‘I went with Mthombo in his Mercedes.’

‘Oh, so the guy quickly replaces me the minute I step aside to fix a small issue,’ Nhlmavu said.

‘Don’t be petty,’ Fasana said. ‘Mthombo and I are strengthening our ties. He doesn’t approve of you, especially after the Lokote incident, but you have to get along with him.’ ‘Oh, so he thinks he’s better?’ Nhlamvu said. ‘It’s the Mercedes.’

Fasana laughed on the inside, saying: ‘I don’t think he’s that bad. The last session is in a week’s time. If you cannot stand him back, the best solution is not to join us on that meeting.’

‘And the more you exclude me?’ Nhlamvu asked. ‘I will be there, in his silly Mercedes.’

‘It’s better that way. You have been with me since day one,’ Fasana said.

‘And you have resisted Nzulu and his plans all this time.’

‘I’m not about to give in now, although a lot of men gave in on Monday,’ Fasana said. ‘During the next session – the last session – Nzulu says it’s the final chance we have to fall in line with government requirements.’

‘What will Nzulu and the government do when you don’t sign up to his demands on your last session?’ Nhlamvu asked, Fasana saying that the word going around was that government would stop them from running their initiation schools.

‘So you are sticking to your original decision?’ Nhlamvu asked.

‘I have been running this business for twenty-three years now,’ Fasana said. ‘I’m not going to let someone from Pretoria tell me how to run what I’ve inherited from my father; I’m not going to let some government official tell me that I need a license to run my school. Mthombo wants me to accept the licence, saying that he might take Zondwe to another initation school.’

‘There has always been something suspicious about the old man,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘His plans all along have to open his own school,’ Fasana said.

‘Has he signed up himself? And is he planning to initiate his own grandson?’

‘These things take time,’ Fasana said. ‘Sghubhu wanted Zondwe at his initiation school, but I have warned Mthombo how inferior the man is. Moreovet, he thinks that if I snub Nzulu, the government will close my initiation school, and he’ll have nowhere to send Zondwe to become a man.’

‘In other words, through Zondwe he’s forcing you to take up the government licence?’ Nhlamvu asked. ‘That’s a neat trick, and it might make you change your mind now. You’ve come a long way, but Mthombo is very smart, I tell you. I should have been there with you on Monday.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Fasana said. ‘Even if you were there, even if you were not, things would have gone the way they did; but be here tomorrow. A promising client will be here to have a look at the cows. The cows will have to be transported to Kwagga if the order goes through tomorrow, we’ll have a busy week ahead.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Nhlamvu said, feeling however that he had not gotten the full story. But there was no use arguing with your boss, so he launched into another issue.

‘Your American girlfriend has been calling,’ he said.

This bit of information surprised Fasana. He had not been expecting to hear news about Sophie since his wife had cautioned her against calling. ‘How did you know?’ Fasana said.

‘My wife told me she has been calling asking for me,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘I wonder who gave her your number,’ Fasana said.

‘When a woman wants something, she won’t stop at anything,’ Nhlamvu said.

***

That his son Mpiyabo and family came home every weekend delighted Fasana. What irked him though was that the son did not want to stay and work there permanently.

‘Welcome home, son,’ Fasana said that Friday night when Fasana arrived with his wife and son. ‘It’s been a busy week and it looks like we are gonna have another busy week.’

‘Thank you, father,’ Mpiyabo. ‘I am glad that things are moving for you here. I’m happy to be home.’

‘But it’s not busy to your liking, is it?’ Fasana said, knowing that the heavy talking was scheduled for Sunday.’

Mpiyabo laughed. ‘Let’s not have that conversation,’ he said.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Now where’s my grandson?’

Mpiyabo called his son who was with his mother, aunt and grandmother. When the grandson came, Fasana said: ‘You should wean yourself off the women.’

Saturday came and the client picked up three bulls that Fasana would allow him to have, Sunday allowing Fasana and Mpiyabo to iron out issues.

‘It’s great news that Nhlamvu is out, and I’m glad that his activities forced Lokote’s hand,’ Mpiyabo was saying as they sat at the kraal. Fasana agreed with his son’s statement, however adding that there was still the issue of the trial, and clarifying the source of Lokote’s money, the son asking what his intentions with the money was.

‘Your mother thinks I should keep it,’ Fasana said. ‘Nhlamvu wants me to keep it. The money wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, but something inside of me does not want to take it.’

‘Why’s that?’ Mpiyabo asked.

‘Uyadelela uLokote. I've never been disrespected like this in my life,’ Fasana said. ‘I’m never giving my cows to a person of low status again, especially if they can’t pay up. The matter was between me and him, not Lokote. Nhlamvu and I gave him more time to pay, but he spat in our faces. Now he’s involved a third-party.’

‘Perhaps you should keep the money,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Either way, we’ll have to do away with Nhlamvu’s services.’

‘What do you mean?' Fasana asked: ‘Nhlamvu is doing a good job.'

‘He’s your friend, that’s what is deceiving you,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘We’ll talk about how his collection methods are costing us but what need have you for a man when all your rich clients pay in time? I have a list here of all the clients that still owe us. We need another person to replace him.’

‘We cannot let him down especially after his stint in detention. Now that he’s out, he can pay all these people some visits. This time they will listen.’

‘Pay them visits with an okapi? What can be so outdated and criminal!’

‘Have you better ideas?’

‘You need to formalize your business, make sure you have professional debt collection procedures in place.’

‘Trust the computer is your solution?’ Fasana asked.

‘You refused digitization for amasokana. Will you also refuse it for your business?’

‘Is that what you learned in school?’

‘Not only that. It’s my bread and butter. You said you want me to come work for you. If you were serious, you would reconsider formalizing how you sell your cows.’

‘Selling cows have never been about invoices and paying up has always been about a man’s word.’

‘Whose word or whose violent acts? If you love amasokana, would you hurt them? No. If you love your customers, why do you allow Nhlamvu to land them in hospital?’

‘Tradition here is failing you,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘In the current case, however, I suggest that you keep the money not the man.’

‘You want me to lose more than money I see,’ Fasana telling him his reasons why he didn’t want to take money.

‘Seems like you’ll be losing either way you play the game,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Accepting money from Sghubhu when his aim is to extract more from you is just plain evil. On the other hand, if the case is not dropped, Nhlamvu will push us into a corner, ultimately pushing for a private lawyer. His wife has already started pushing in that direction.’

‘They talk about it at night,’ Fasana said. ‘On Friday Nhlamvu was telling me how he deserves a private lawyer.‘

‘The entitlement!’ Mpiyabo said.

‘He wasn’t forthcoming about it,’ Fasana said. ‘He framed it as if he had pity for Lokote.’

‘It’s a bit rich for him to feel sorry for a man he has broken.’

‘Well, he was saying if Sghubhu was moneying him up, why shouldn’t he also take him to a private hospital.’

‘Letting him go is the solution,’ Mpiyabo said, explaining that if the man was no longer under they employ, he wouldn’t have the nerve to want private stuff. Anyway, since your man was happy with the cows, I’ll arrange for transportation to come latest Tuesday.’

‘That would be great, my dear son,’ Fasana said. ‘This will also be a busy week for me; I won’t be able to make that trip to your government session as I had promised.’

‘Well, the last session is not this Monday, but the other Monday. And since there won’t be any cow sales, perhaps you can make some time.’

‘I’ll check my schedule,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘Nhlamvu aside, where are we in terms of ingoma?’

‘In terms of ingoma,’ Fasana responded: ‘I was thinking we should notify all parents that they should prepare blankets and food by the last week of July since we have scheduled this year’s ingoma for August.’

‘I’m sure Nhlamvu can make efforts in that direction whilst he’s still under our employ,’ Mpiyabo said, Fasana responding that he would speak to him. He liked the idea: maybe by becoming more involved in ingoma, Nhlamvu would escape the harsh claws Mpiyabo loved to handle him with. Nhlamvu, Fasana thought, had shown interest in the boys, and he was unlikely to harm them there, but his only flaw, as shown in the case of his advocacy for Matjibi, was that he was emotional to the point that he had convinced Fasana to initiated the kid without any form of payment. But at that moment, speaking with Mpiyabo, there was still something Fasana wanted to ask.

‘Did by any chance Sophie call you?’

‘Sophie?’

‘The journalist from abroad.’

‘Oh, the researcher! Your American friend? Why would she call me?’

Fasana explained that she had called Nhlamvu. ‘If she’s calling Nhlamvu, I figured she’s calling everybody, but it’s a small issue, really.’

Buty why would she call Nhlamvu, Mpiyabo wanted to know, Fasana answering that she was trying to get to him because Mrs. Fasana had told her to stop calling.

‘I get it now,’ Mpiyabo. No, she hasn’t called me. I mean, who gave her Nhlamvu’s number?’

‘The same question I’m asking myself,’ Fasana said.

‘Then it’s more of a big deal,’ Mpiyabo said. ‘It’s shady what she’s doing – you have to get at the bottom of this.’

Fasana laughed. ‘How would I go across America looking for a stranger? I’ll just let the issue pass. She’ll stop calling.’

‘Well, you could let it pass, but you would be enabling bad behaviour from a researcher. She has to be ethical, not be calling your acquaintances and family. You know what I’ll do? I’ll find out more about what research organisation she’s from and ask whether they know about her wild behaviour.’

While they were finishing up supper preparations, Mrs. Fasana told her daughet Noku this: ‘You father has secured money for you to go to the royal later this year.’

‘You speak of it as if there’s something wrong with it.’

‘I hope you don’t see it as a way of saying that I don’t trust that you are a virgin, but the world needs proof. It’s just the way it is.’

‘If you’re asking whether I have slept with Matjibi, the answer’s no.’

‘I trust you.’

‘We only kissed.’

Mrs. Fasana was surprised by this. ‘Is that all you did?’

‘You said you trust me.’

‘I do,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘This brings me to the big story here: your father wants you to marry Zondwe.’

‘Is that why he asked me at the ceremony to sit next to Zondwe all the time? I don’t love him; I love Matjibi. But what’s more important is the fact that I don’t want to be married now. I want to go to university. That’s the big news to me.’

‘That’s the big news to me as well,’ Mrs. Fasama said, adding that she and her husband were uneducated but happy. ‘You can always go to university as a married woman.’

‘I wish I could run away,’ Noku said, her mother asking where she would run to, Noku answering that she would run to her brother’s house in KwaMhlanga.

‘I doubt you can hide there without anybody knowing,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘What’s more, you don’t want to jeorpadize your education.’

‘True,’ Mrs. Fasana said, adding that maybe there was something to Zondwe Noku was missing.

‘You sound just like dad,’ Noku said. ‘He said that if I can love Matjibi, I can love Zondwe as well.’

CHAPTER 6

The cattle transportation Mpiyabo had arrived while he was back in the city arrived in Shobane that Tuesday. When the cows departed, Nhlamvu was left saying to Fasana: ‘I hope he won’t be one of those troublesome customers. It would be hard to chase debt in Kwagga. Hard but doable.’

‘The customer settled everything with Mpiyabo on Saturday,’ Fasana said, a thought running through his mind that Lokote had been discharged from hospital that Monday. ‘He can be good when he wants; which brings to something I have been meaning to discuss in terms of where the business is going.’

Nhlamvu didn’t say a word, allowing Fasana to continue: ‘It seems to me computers are taking over. First, Mpiyabo wanted me to digitize certain parts of ingoma; now he’s hitting straight into the cattle business: he thinks his Accounting, coupled with computers, can replace the way we have been collecting debt. With ingoma, I told him that was a no-go area; with the cattle, he might have a point. If I digitize our Accounting system, you might find yourself out of a job.’

This talk stirred Nhlamvu. If he had been quiet, now it was time to speak. ‘Are your customers going to pay their debts direct into computers?’ he asked. ‘I’m baffled. You can change the system, but what system doesn’t need people? You should have refused to digitize just like you did with ingoma.’

‘I don’t think Mpi has anything against you personally,’ Fasana said, making a mental note to go speak to Sghubhu sometime soon. ‘It’s just what they teach at university that makes them have wild ideas.’ The last time Nhlamvu and he had discussed Lokote and Sghubhu was a few days ago, on Friday.

‘He’s no longer a student,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘He’s an adult. He must not go around throwing crazy ideas, and you must stop making excuses for him. It’s not what he thinks, but what you think.’

‘I know,’ Fasana said, thinking of what to say next.

‘I have worked hard in this business to let go now,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘Let’s test Mpi’s idea,’ Fasana said.

‘You test it by putting me out of my job ten days into a new month?’ Nhlamvu said.

‘Look,’ Fasana said, thinking about the messages that had to be sent around to parents. ‘Stopping being my debt collector does not mean there are no things for you to do around here. There’s one or two things to keep you busy until monthend. You can also attend your trial without much burden.’

‘I thought the plan was to have Lokote drop the case,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘Maybe it’s time I pay him another visit – a serious one this time.’

‘No, don’t go there,’ Fasana said. ‘Let me deal with Lokote and Sghubhu myself.’ There were many things he had to fix: this issue, the Noku-Zondwe issue, and the biggest of them all: whether he was gonna sign up for the government licence. Time was ticking: there were less than two weeks now to make a decision. A lot of people were looking at him to do the right thing: his wife and Zondwe.

Fasana had been meaning to pay Sghubhu a visit that Wednesday but, but his day was turned upside down by a visit from Detective Sontabi. Mrs. Fasana nervously listened to the conversation in the kitchen.

‘As an eye-witness of the horrible stabbing of an innocent man, and an important witness in the case, I am here to ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Fasana. Try your best to stick to the truth – groetman. Does the accused call you groetman? Angifuni kuba formal unnecessarily,’ Detective Sontabi said. ‘

A frownn had registered on Fasana’s face: why was the detective speaking like a tsotsi?’

‘Fasana is going to be alright. Mziwethu Fasana; Fasana of the Khumalos,’ Fasana said. If it had been someone else, he would have told them to start speaking correctly.

‘As I said, I am going to ask a couple of questions,’ Sontabi said.

‘I don’t have much to say,’ Fasana said.

‘Strange,’ Detective Sontabi said: ‘Mina ngiyajayiva, wena awujayivi? You were there, I wasn’t, but you’re not willing to talk. In case you hadn’t realized, liyatshisa leli cala, lingathatha i-corner lingajiki. I’m not sure you want that for your man.’

‘Did they really have to send someone who doesn’t respect formality?’ Fasana asked, really perturbed by the tsotsitaal.

‘What do you mean?’ Sontabi asked, Fasana explaining that he hated the pantsula language, Sontabi then explaining that it took a thief to catch a thief, and to catch a thief, you had to speak their language.

‘I’m not a tsotsi,’ Fasana said.

‘You are in his network, aren’t you?’ Sontabi said. ‘You better start speaking, Mr. Fasana. Why did Nhlamvu attack Lokote?’

‘How would I know?’

‘You witnessed the crime.’

‘Just like anybody else.’

‘Not like everybody else,’ Sontabi said. ‘You know more than you are telling. In fact, you sent him to attack Lokote. Was it your plan that day attending the ceremony?’

‘That’s absurd,’ Fasana said, Sontabi countering, saying that the actual absurdity was that he and Nhlamvu had premeditated the attack on Lokote, choosing the ceremony as the opportunity to commit their heinous crime.

‘What is your question?’ Fasana said, his voice pitched higher now.

‘I have not asked a question,’ corrected Detective Sontabi. ‘But, here we go: what was your plan that day?’

‘What plan? I had no plan. We had no plan.’

Detective Sontabi laughed. ‘Le-movie ayishayile, akakwazi ukuyishaya engena screenplay,’ he said.

‘I’m not saying anything against him,’ Fasana said.

‘Ngiyabona ukuthi awusiyona inja ekhonkothayo or a songstress with the highest note, kodwa ngikugaya one more chance because the judge won’t think twice about sentencing your man to prison for a long time, and consider yourself lucky that we have not yet charged you as the mastermind as yet.’

‘I do not like the detective,’ Mrs. Fasana said to Fasana when Sontabi was gone. ‘His questions also: they paint you like a criminal.’

‘He was doing his job,’ Fasana said, realizing Nhlamvu was waiting for him outside.

‘He was doing his job to want to arrest you? You must be repulsed by that,’ Mrs. Fasana said. ‘What will the whole village say? Fasana, you must stop dealing with that man.’

‘Lower your voice,’ Fasana said. ‘The man is outside.’

‘You always defend him,’ Mrs. Fasana said, Fasana saying that the detective had already eaten much of his time: he needed to attend something else.

‘I ran down here as soon as I heard the police van was here,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘The detective was in no smiling mod,’ Fasana said.

‘What did he say?’ Nhlamvu asked. ‘Was here to take a statement?’

‘He was just asking some questions like whether it was our plan to attack Lokote that day.’

‘That’s evil of him,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘He was supposed to take your statement only and not ask you leading questions like that. He was taking chances.’

‘How do you know what he was supposed to do?’ Fasana said. ‘Sometimes I feel like you are the real cop and something makes me feel that Sontabi was the actual criminal.’

Nhlamvu laughed. ‘You can’t be a criminal and not know the justice system,’ he said. ‘The detective was messing around. Chances are that he is not familiar with the case. He wanted to scare you.’

‘Well, I’m not easily scared,’ Fasana said. ‘But he managed to get to my wife.’

‘Women are like that,’ Nhlamvu said. ‘But, you shouldn’t worry. Like I said, the man was fooling around. He has flimsy evidence. So, did he make you sign any paper?’

‘You’re asking a lot of questions,’ Fasana said. ‘Just like the detective.’

‘Well, he got on your nerves, didn’t he?’ Nhlamvu asked. ‘That’s what you get when you ask a witness questions like you were a goddamned lawyer than a detective supposed to be taking a lousy statement.’

‘My meeting with Sghubhu becomes more important,’ Fasana said. ‘I have to get him to take the money and have him convince his man to drop the case.’

‘Are you seeing him today?’ Nhlamvu asked.

‘That was the plan,’ Fasana said, adding that he would go see Sghubhu on Friday.

CHAPTER ???

On that Monday, the plan had been for the three men to meet at Fasana’s so they could all to Kwaggafontein in Mthombo’s Mercedes. This was two weeks after Nhlamvu was released from police custody on bail.

Mthombo ha

CHAPTER 7

On that Monday, the plan had been for the three men to meet at Fasana’s so they could all to Kwaggafontein in Mthombo’s Mercedes. This was two weeks after Nhlamvu was released from police custody on bail.

Mthombo had been the first to arrive on that Monday, so the easy mood between Fasana and Mthombo was killed when Nhlamvu arrived carrying the old Fasana newspaper cutting. When Fasana saw the cutting, he was annoyed, asking: ‘What is this now? You want everybody in Kwaggafontein to see the infamous article?’

Mthombo said that wouldn’t be a good idea. Nhlamvu, however said: ‘I bring this up because another journalist – that overseas journalist – called me last night.’

‘Sophie, or Sofia, you mean?’ Fasana asked.

‘How am I to know whether it’s Sophie or Sofia, but somewhere there,’ Nhlamvu said.

Fasana was taken aback by this. ‘Sophie called you?’

Nhlamvu nodded, Mthombo putting a question: ‘What did she want? An article on you and the–’

‘And the what?’ Nhlamvu stared sharply at Mthombo that Fasana had to intervene.

‘Gentlemen, take it easy,’ Fasana said. ‘What did she want from you, Nhlamvu?’

Nhlamvu explained that Sophie had been calling because she thought she might catch Fasana at his place.

‘I wonder where he got your number,’ Fasana said.

‘Journalists have a way of finding out,’ Mthombo said. ‘You cut them off, they open another line. That’s why one should stay away from journalists because they also have the knack of finding what’s not there.’

‘I told her not to call again,’ Nhlamvu said.

‘Chances are that if he fails to get you, he will go for Mthombo,’ Fasana said.

‘Me, I don’t want anything to do with journalists,’ Mthombo said.

‘Nobody wants anything to do with journalists,’ Fasana said. ‘My wife told Sophie to cut it, but look now: she’s troubling Nhlamvu.’

‘You shouldn’t have done the article in the first place,’ Mthombo said.

Fasana explained that it had been a different journalist, adding: ‘The only way to get her off my back is to tell her loud and clearly this time.’

‘And the only way to do that is to give her a call,’ Mthombo said, adding: ‘Now, gentlemen, we must get moving. Calling her and finding out where he got Nhlamvu’s number is something you can do in your free time.’

Somebody had given Sophie Nhlamvu’s number, Fasana told his wife later that day. Mrs. Fasana asked who Sophie was: the American woman? Fasana answered that Sophie was the American South African, but the important matter, Fasana told his wife, was that he needed to give Sophie a call since she had been trying to get at him through Nhlamvu. The problem with Fasana placing this call was that his wife had instructed Sophie never to call again. The sceptical Mrs. Fasana said that if her husband desperately felt the urge to call the conniving American woman, he should have come up with a better excuse, not this one. When Fasana tried to impress on her the importance of the call, Mrs. Fasana didn’t give much of a fight, telling him that he could talk to anybody he so wished to.

‘Mr. Fasana!’ the excited Sophie said when Fasana telephoned her. ‘You have finally decided to talk to me.’

‘I will ask one question, and I’ll keep talking if you answer me honestly: who gave you Nhlamvu’s number?’

CHAPTER 8

‘It seems odd to me that asking for an old man’s opinions qualifies as research,’ Mr. Fasana said.

‘That is not true, Mr. Fas–’

Fasana laughed, and then asked: ‘Is it not true that I am an old man?’

Sophie laughed as well, and then said: ‘You are an old man, there’s no doubt about that.’

Mr. Fasana had another question for her: ‘And it is correct that my opinions do not qualify as research?’

‘Not exactly true, Mr. Fasana. You might not have thought about this, but your opinions are since when boys come here, they leave as men.’

For a bit, this made Fasana swell with pride, but he then said: ‘Mntanami, these facts you speak highly of are not research. They are our way of life; our secrets; men’s secrets.’

‘Well, you can share the public aspects of the Southern Ndebele secrets,’ Sophie said.

‘Why would you want to bore yourself with that, for I am certain that you won't abandon America to be bored with the public side of our ritual. I am sure you want the scandalous side. Americans must be a busy people.’

Here Sophie corrected Mr. Fasana: she was not American, she said.

‘But you will be coming from the United States, won't you?’ Fasana stuck to his guns.

Sophie smiled but returned to the main issue. ‘I am willing to hear and be bored by the public side of your private ritual.’

As if speaking to himself, Fasana said: ‘Can private details have a public side?’ When he heard no quick answer, he said: ‘I am sure you will gain more public information if you read the papers and listen to the radio. These days, young people don't listen to the radio. What a shame.’

‘But I want to hear from you,’ Sophie said.

Mr. Fasana laughed. ‘You want to hear my opinions for they are research, you say?’

‘Mr. Fasana, whatever you say to me will be treated confidentiality,’ Sophie said.

‘I do not understand. You mean you will not publish what I tell you?’

‘I will publish parts of it, but I will withhold identifying information such as names of places and people.'

‘You love secrets, don't you?’ Mr. Fasana laughed.

‘Research ethics require anonymity.’

‘My conscience requires that I say no more than I should. I wouldn't be caught dead spying on my people. I'm no sellout,’ Fasana said.

‘It's for a good cause,’ Sophie said. ‘Imagine this new generation of black kids learning about their tradition straight from the source. This is a case of the lion telling it's own story. Isn't this what a post-apartheid society and post-colonial educational system supposed to look like?’

‘My kids have modern education; one has university, but the more I believe they should unlearn what they have been taught at school to lead better lives.’ As Fasana talked about his kids and unlearning, Sophie’s mind was making plans: if I can get Mr. Fasana to agree to be my research participant, that means I'll spend September 2002 in Mpumalanga, Kwaggafontein. What place is that? I'll have to access my tattered atlas. September 2002 for three weeks. I'll need accommodation. The ten thousand American grant will carry me. Things are looking good. But one has to plan for uncertainties. What if I lose my research whilst I'm in a new place? What if my grant cannot carry me? I should protect my research; and I can always rely on my salary as backup. What if the Kwaggafontein locals chase me away for being a woman interested in men’s private rituals? I'll have to convince them that a culture textbook featuring the aspects of Southern Ndebele male initiation is good for the postcolonial student. It would be good if an old tradition can be looked at through the lenses of a postcolonial society. My car–

She got back into the conversation just as she had started thinking about her Olive Green Corsa Lite, a B-segment small car, just one rung above the city car (she was missing her Corsa back in South Africa, parked and waiting until she would be back from America about a year from now). She listened attentively as Fasana talked on about how life would be better if people were educated in the Southern Ndebele way of doing things, but Sophie, after sensing her turn, said: ‘We should be in this together – the government, education system and traditional leaders. We should all play a role.’

‘Not when the government is overplaying its role,’ Fasana said. ‘Teamwork is about involving all stakeholders.’

‘Baba, you have been on the phone for a long time,’ Mrs. Fasana said.

‘You are right, my wife,’ Fasana said. ‘Look, lady: I am afraid I cannot be of use to your project. Goodbye.’

CHAPTER 9

The meeting at his place had gone smoothly that evening. ‘How does it feel to be the owner of an initiation that's been in operation for decades?’ After asking this, there was apprehension on Sophie's part as she realized the frown that had registered on Fasana’s forehead. ‘What gives you the right, or how on earth do you arrive at a point where equate being a custodian of a tradition with being an owner of a tradition that has been practiced by abantu abamnyama for centuries? Ufika njani lapho, ngane yam?’

‘I take it your son will follow in your footsteps – elandela enyaweni zakho – and be the custodian of the centuries-old tradition,’ Sophie said.

Xxx was a short and almost stodgy black woman, long braids (cornrows) falling from her head. She was in her usual clothes: brown jeans, matching denim jeans, black belt and black hiking tekkies. She saw herself more as an archaeologist than anything. She harboured ambitions, if not a wish, of becoming an archaeologist.

‘That's if I want the tradition to die,’ Fasana said.

This made Sophie apprehensive again: she read Mr Fasana’s response to mean that by making his son the custodian, the tradition would die. ‘You envision a day the tradition would cease to operate it?’ she asked.

‘The government, our black government, is killing it and it's winning.’

‘With due respect, Mr Fasana, the government wants tradition and modern ideas to move in tandem.’

‘You certainly believe the government’s story since you are repeating its lines. Look, my son Mpiyabo, is just out of university. What does one really know at that age? 1981… 1982 – around that time – my father was still alive but sick most of the times. To make sure, we still have this school, he would do the main business himself even if his wife, my mother, and all of us in the family implored him to let someone do his duties. I was older than Mpiyabo is now, but my old man wanted me to gain more experience. See, the–’

‘You were thirty-two?’

‘Thirty-one or thirty-two. Why does it matter? I was not ready to take over. Mpiyabo is way younger than I was and the tradition is under attack more than it ever was. Government meddling is at an all-time high. Traditional leaders, chiefs and CONTRALESA are capitulating.’

‘And you are the last man standing?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I meant you refuse to capitulate. The last man is someone heroic.’

‘That makes me an enemy – an enemy of progress. I should not be the last man standing. My son should not be the last man standing. His son should not be the last man standing. We should all be last man standing. One man is not enough. On my own, I can withstand the government, but will Mpiyabo have the strength?’

Sophie did not know since she scarcely knew the Mpiyabo’s character, but she said a university degree spoke of character. In turn, Fasana said that all universities did do was teach English and foreign languages.

‘That's unfair,’ Sophie said. ‘A university is a school just like an initiation school. I'm sure you don't teach French of Kiswahili at your initiation school!?’

‘We don't teach that. We teach boys to become men. Resistance is one of the characteristics a man needs. To resist is to defend tradition. To resist is to ward off modernity in all its guises. Modernity comes in the form of foreign knowledge. Modernity comes in the form of degrees you don't need. I resist our initiation school being modernized. Modernity comes in the form of foreign languages. The Southern Ndebele man should follow the Southern Ndebele life. Kumele aphile isikethu. Speak the language and lead the life. That's what we teach here. We don't live isikhuwa.’

‘But you would be aware that the Southern Ndebele population is not that big. Moreover, you would be aware that most South Africans do not speak English.’

‘I do not worry myself with such trivialities,’ Fasana said. ‘Why should I worry about the number of people who speak English or not? What concerns me is the Southern Ndebele man. They should not fill his head with isikhuwa. The less he speaks English the better. The less he adopts modernity the better. Now, do we go around telling people who speak English and live the modern life to speak English and live isikethu? I know what your answer will be; it will be the same as mine: that Mpumalanga is for the Southern Ndebele and requires its people to live isikethu.’

‘Some will accuse you of tribalism or nationalism,’ Sophie said. ‘Tribalism would be against the spirit of democracy.’

‘I see you prefer words to deceive you,’ Mr. Fasana said. ‘What's democracy when you cannot practice your culture in peace? Tell me this: do they teach Southern Ndebele in the country's universities?’

‘I studied at University of Natal. I do not remember coming across Southern Ndebele there.’

‘We are lucky not to have a university in our province,’ Mr Fasana said. ‘Otherwise it would be filling our children’s heads with isikhuwa.’

‘But Mpiyethu has a university degree, hasn't he?’

‘Right. I had to send him to Gauteng – University of Pretoria. Imagine the cost of educating your children in another province. But that's where the kids want to be; that's where they rush to – they rush to Gauteng.’

‘How about you then tell me?’

‘These are private discussions, my dear,’ Fasana said.

‘If not you, then other people will have these private discussions publicly, and these people might be bad actors. I suggest that the good people carry these discussions.’

‘In that case, let's have those discussions,’ Fasana said.

‘My father will become a celebrity when that book they are writing about him is finished. In fact, he's already a minor celebrity after he appeared in the newspaper saying that he won't sellout,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Sophie said. ‘That was when he was everybody's hero.’

‘What do you mean? Do you mean he's no longer your hero? Is he no longer your hero?’

‘Your father is someone I will always look up to. Just that he's surprised everybody by collaborating with a journalist to write about our secrets.’

‘That woman is no journalist. She's a university lecturer or something like that.’

‘I doubt we know who she truly is. She might be a spy for all we know. One thing for sure, though, she's ruining your father's reputation. She's aiding him to make public our secrets.’

‘I disagree with how you characterise this woman. She's made father see the light. I think it's for the best that initiation be taught to all. Everyone must know about it. Men; women.’

‘That's against culture for women to involve themselves in men's affairs.’

‘Not true; not fair. We are their sisters, mothers, girlfriends and so on. We have a right to know.’

‘If it were up to me, I would have your father not do this. Some boys, I hear, will go elsewhere for their initiation.’

‘Are you one of those boys?’

She was quite for a while, searching for an answer.

‘I get it,’ Sophie said. ‘You won't go with the boys coz you cannot afford to pay for your initiation. You pretend to love my father because he has agreed to initiate you for free. I cannot believe this.’

‘I am not going with the boys because I love you. Ngiyakuthanda.’

‘I love you too, but I wish you could love my father for who he is, not what he can do for you.’

After two years of living in a white community in the United States of America, Sophie returned to South Africa in 2002. Of course, during this two-year period she had made numerous visits back to the country, but this time she was back for good. Her next project now that she was back in the country, she thought, was to go observe a traditional system run by a certain man in Mpumalanga. She had made initial contact with the man two years back, the moment she had just landed in the U.S.

CHAPTER 10

My Corsa Lite is finally in the MP province, she thought to herself. It feels like just a while ago I was driving on the N3 highway at Westville in KZN. She could have been in the USA, the way the national route was.

You could have fooled me. A country girl never looked more like you. Your clothes.

Mr Fasana laughed. 'What, you expected to see a woman in high heels?'

'Isn't that the city life?'

‘If you're a one-dimensional woman, yes. I do not fit the picture of a stereotypical black city woman. I wouldn't do myself bad like that.’

‘What about marriage?’

‘I am a happily married wife and am a mother of two beautiful children.’

‘Is your husband happy as well?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What does he think about your dressing?’

‘What he thinks is his business. But I doubt he has time to be thinking about my dressing. He has morw important stuff to think about at work. We are busy people. He spends more time at work than with me and the kids. And as you can see, I am here working.’

So these people, Fasana thought, run away from tackling issues by going to work. ‘Today, you are in America; tomorrow, you are in South Africa. Aren't you proud of your home country? I was born and bred here in Mpumalanga. And I will die here. For me, that's progress: never having to go anywhere.’

‘For me, travelling is a ritual,’ Sophie said.

‘I think you love places more than you love people. I think you should invest more in loving and knowing people.’

‘I am yet to travel to a place where there are no people. What makes me travel are the people.’

‘If travelling is part of your job, so be it,’ Fasana said. ‘But nobody should be in the business of changing another person’s way of doing. Have you ever seen white people copy black people? I am all for black people – I love them – and what they used to be; not what they have become. They have come to be against themselves.’

’I wish you had hope for the future.’

‘You cannot have hope for the future if you cannot take good care of now.’

‘Nice car!’ she said.

‘Thank you dear.’

‘Your husband must have choice.’

‘What do you mean?’

She explained that she thought her husband owned the Corsa. ‘It's more common for men to drive. I thought she borrowed you the car. Men are smarter.’

‘Whoever said that to you was lying. We are good as them. Even better. My husband has his own car, and I own mine.’

‘What car does he own?’

A Mercedes.

‘You see, he drives a much nicer car than you. Why do you choose a less nicer car than him?’

‘It's all about the money, honey. The moolah.’

‘Meaning he earns more? I thought you said we were on the same level as them.’

‘We can be even be better than them, but they'll earn more than you, baby.’

‘It's sad.’

‘I'm glad it makes you sad.’

‘Are you smarter than your husband?’

‘Sometimes he does stupid things, but we work different jobs.’

‘Do you also do stupid things?’

‘I am smart.’

‘And would you drive his car if you were smarter than him?’

‘They would still pay me less. It's the sad story of being smart and underappreciated.’

‘I'm glad.’

‘You're glad that I'm sad? No, I actually think you are silly. Tell me about your boyfriend.’

‘You are a bad liar.’

‘I am telling the truth.’

‘I know what truth looks and sounds like.’

‘You won't tell my father?’

‘What's his name?’

THey told her.

‘Do you love him?’

‘He'll marry me.’

‘Aren't you still young?’

‘When I'm older.’

‘You must tell your father about him.’

‘He already knows him. He just doesn't like him.’

‘He sees he's a jerk?’

‘He hates him because he's an orphan.’

‘No kidding. Your father doesn't seem like a misanthrope.’

‘He's paying for his initiation.’

‘So your father is a good man after all.’

‘His goodness ends there.’

‘Perhaps he knows better.’

‘I feel better.’

‘Knowledge is better than feelings.’

‘Depends on who knows.’

‘I feel you, but that doesn't make you right.’

‘I know.’

‘Noooo! I think you are in love.’

‘You understand me.’

‘I understand love.’

‘You do.’

‘Do you?’

‘Does he? I want us to get married.’

‘You will if he loves you.’

‘If my father wants us to. He's poor.’