The Heart Of Redness

Post-Apartheid South Africa

The whole village is getting ready for the end of the school year concert. Students are practicing their dances, while workers at the Blue Flamingo Hotel practice their songs. However, while the rest of the villagers focus on the upcoming celebration, Bhonco, Zim, Camagu and Dalton are preoccupied with their own thoughts. 

Bhonco is bitter that NoPetticoat is spending all her evenings practicing for the concert. Zim stands on the hill waiting for the Russian ships that the Believers of the Middle Generations waited for during the time of the prophecies. Because it was the Russians that killed Sir George Cathcart during the Crimean War, the Believers regarded the Russians as the spirits of amaXhosa soldiers coming to liberate their people. Camagu tries to keep his thoughts on NomaRussia, but he is increasingly drawn to Qukezwa. Dalton is defensive about his communal water project and cannot understand why the other villagers expect him to keep the taps going when they are unwilling to pay for it. Camagu criticizes Dalton, which has a detrimental effect on their relationship: “You went about this whole thing the wrong way, John. The water project is failing because it was imposed on the people. No one bothered to find out their needs” (179). 

The Middle Generations

Twin-Twin continues to rebuff the attempts of his fellow Unbelievers to convert him to Christianity, while Twin and Qukezwa continue to wait for the resurrection. When the prophesy fails to materialize again, Mhlakaza says that the prophetesses “say that the dead will not rise as long as Chief Nxito remains in exile” (185). Chief Nxito, a staunch Unbeliever whose son had ousted him, does believe in the prophesies. Now the prophetesses are saying that Chief Nxito must be returned to power in order for the prophesies to manifest. Twin-Twin thinks that it is a mistake for Chief Nxito to return because it will diminish his authority if he allows himself to be ordered around by young girls. Chief Nxito finally bows to pressure and returns to Qolorha. While he remains an Unbeliever, the rumors start flying that he has been converted by Mhlakaza and the prophetesses. 

Post-Apartheid South Africa

Bhonco and his fellow Unbelievers engage in a trance that takes them back in time to the Middle Generations. It is a dance that they had borrowed from the abaThwa since the Unbelievers do not have their own dance that can transport them back in time. But when Bhonco returns to consciousness, he realizes that “they are all surrounded by a group of abaThwa, the small people who were called Bushmen by the colonists of old” (187). The abaThwa want their dance back. 

On his way to the concert that night, Bhonco plans to have it out with Zim. He believes that it was Zim who put the abaThwa up to taking back their dance from the Unbelievers. He sees Zim seated next to Camagu and sneers at him. At the concert people can pay money to dictate who goes on stage and what they do. At first, the acts go on as expected—the dancers and then the choirs. Eventually, the concertgoers start using the ability to control others through money to escalate their rivalries. Qukezwa invites all the women in the village with the name NomaRussia to come onto the stage. Camagu searches their faces, not finding the NomaRussia that brought him to Qolorha-by-Sea. Then the friends of Zim’s mistress pay to have Qukezwa stand on the stage and explain their friend’s pain. Qukezwa responds, stating: “Well, the explanation is a very simple one. Their friend caused the pain on herself” (193). John Dalton then pays for Qukezwa to sing in her “split-tone manner” (193). As she does, he admires her:

Qukezwa sings in such beautiful colors. Soft colors like the ochre of yellow gullies. Reassuring colors of the earth. Red. Hot colors like blazing fire. Deep blue. Deep green. Colors of the valleys and the ocean. Cool colors like the rain of summer sliding down a pair of naked bodies (193). 

Camagu has the same reaction to Qukezwa at the concert that he did riding with her on Gxagxa. He follows her out of the concert and declares his love for her, to which she retorts: “You know nothing about love, learned man!” (194). Qukezwa spits back at him, before leaving. He has humiliated himself in front of the other villagers.

Back at the concert the tensions continue to rise. Bhonco accuses Zim of sending the abaThwa to take back their dance. In turn, Zim spends his savings and “buys” Bhonco’s wife, forcing NoPetticoat to ululate for the entirety of the concert.

Camagu stays in his cottage for days until Dalton finally convinces him to come out of hiding. Three developers are holding a meeting and Dalton wants Camagu’s support as he tries to dissuade the villagers from supporting the new casino and water-sports ventures. At the meeting, one of the developers describes all the improvements that the businesses will bring to Qolorha-by-Sea. Camagu argues that the villagers will not be able to take part in these improvements, and very few of them will find employment in the tourist trade. When the developer asked how he will stop them, Camagu blurts out the first idea that comes to mind—“I will have this village declared a national heritage site” (201). 

That evening, impressed with Camagu’s efforts to save Qolorha-by-Sea from the developers, Qukezwa shows up at his cottage. The two ride Gxagxa “bareback, reinless and naked” (203).

The Middle Generations

Chief Nxito is anxious to prove the prophetesses false by demanding that Mhlakaza “display to the chiefs of the kwaXhosa those new people he was claiming had already risen from the dead” (207). Mhlakaza agrees, but when his men find Twin-Twin hiding in the place where the new people were to show themselves, Mhlakaza claims, “Nxito has insulted the new people!” (207). Once again, the Unbelievers are blamed for the failure of the prophesies to come about. Later, when King Sarhili goes to the mouth of the Gxarha River, he finds “that Mhlakaza and Nongqawuse had vanished. They had left a message that the new people had angrily returned to the Otherworld because of the despicable behavior of the unbelieving chiefs” (209). King Sarhili, “sad and humiliated,” tries “to kill himself with his father’s spear” (209). 

King Sarhili’s faith returns before the full moon in February, the new date set for resurrection by Mhlakaza and the prophetesses. John Dalton, who has become a tradesman, makes money off the starving Believers by selling them candles “so they might have some light during the great darkness” (210). When the sun rises in the sky like any other ordinary day, King Sarhili finally loses “all hope. He took the blame upon himself for issuing the imiyolelo, the orders that people should obey the prophets of Gxarha. He told John Dalton, ‘I have been deceived’” (211).

Post-Apartheid South Africa

Qukezwa is brought before the court of Chief Xikixa. She is accused of cutting down wattle and lantana trees. The only tree that can be cut down without the permission of the chief is the mimosa tree, or the umga. Bhonco tries to get Zim on the hook for Qukezwa’s actions. Bhonco argues that Qukezwa is still a minor since she is unmarried, and therefore, her father is responsible for her actions. However, Qukezwa insists on taking accountability for what she has done. Before the elders can make a decision, the court proceedings are interrupted by the news that a homestead is on fire. Everyone rushes to help put out the fire.

The fire had started at NoGiant’s house when her husband, angry that NoGiant asked him to take a bath before he could engage in his “conjugal rights,” poured “paraffin all over the rondavel while ranting and raving about her unreasonable demand that he should wash his body” (220). He then set “the house ablaze” (220). Camagu blames himself because it was his idea that the women should work from home rather than together at the cottage, to keep them from “gossiping” (219) and to make them more productive. Qukezwa tries to ease his mind: “You should not worry yourself about that […] Men are insecure when women make more money. It makes women more independent. Men will just have to get used to it” (220). They then go down to the sea and climb aboard a wrecked ship, the Jacaranda, that her father believes is a Russian ship that had arrived “more than a century late” (220).

Later that afternoon, Camagu visits Vulindlela Trading Store. There, Dalton’s wife lets Camagu know how disappointed she is in his choice. Qukezwa “is a rotten apple, that one […] Take Xoliswa Ximiya, for instance. Now there’s a lady” (222). Meanwhile, Qukezwa gives birth to her son, who she names “Heitsi” after “Heitsi Eibib, the earliest prophet of the Khoikhoi” (23).