Hunger Eats a Man by Nkosinathi Sithole Read Free Book Online Page B

become.” Sithole can’t help smiling when he gets to the part about being rich. “We will be richer even than Hadebe. We will have not one stairway but many.”
    “This confuses me,” MaXulu begins. “There is always a problem. Someone is stirring up black medicine? Someone needs a cow to be slaughtered for them? No. A car without wheels cannot move!” MaXulu almost spits in disgust.
    “MaXulu, please! Don’t say my ancestors have no wheels. Take it from me. Zwane has rectified everything. You heard with your own ears our grandfather saying that …”
    MaXulu does not let him finish. “No, I did not. All I heard was Zwane pretending to be your grandfather and only a fool did not notice that.”
    “But, MaXulu …”
    “No, Sithole. Don’t enter into my mouth when I am speaking the truth for once in our marriage. Do you remember that I asked your grandfather his name and he did not know it? Just because Zwane did not know it?”
    “I tell you over and over again that you were not supposed to confront my ancestor like that. You could have died or even been struck dumb. A young wife never talks to the ancestors.” Sithole is beginning to feel hot and MaXulu does not care.
    “And that is why you had to remind him of his name?”
    “Oh! Don’t be so difficult, MaXulu. Zwane did a great job rectifying our ancestors. Look now, you can feel that there is no strain on our shoulders. We can walk and breathe freely.”
    “All I feel is hunger,” MaXulu says. “And that walking and breathing freely should not have cost us R2 000. We would not be this hungry if you had not thrown that money away.”
    Sithole takes a deep breath before responding, “Oh. There you go again. Do you think this money would never have been finished if I did not use it to pay Zwane?”
    “Of course not. But I will always complain about it as long as we are hungry.”
    She sends a furtive glance at her husband and notices that the anger is fuming inside him. The devil in her tells her to ignore his anger and continue. “And now you want to take the little we have and make Mkhipheni’s feast.” The tears that fill her eyes amaze and disappoint her. She doesn’t want to be weak any more. “You are wasteful!”
    Sithole forcibly hits the sides of the sofa with both his hands. He did not intend to do this, but as he does they both realise that he is angry, really angry.
    “MaXulu, pleeeease!” he shouts now. “Let’s forget about this because you are just like a child.” He pauses for a while, thinking that it would indeed be better to close this discussion here and now. But the anger inside him has reached its saturation point. “It shows that no
mbeleko
was performed for you when you were a child, not to mention
umhlonyane
and
umemulo
. This means you are not registered in your family. You are just floating.”
    “I’ll rather float than be as wasteful as you are. And what is wrong with me that none of those silly rituals were performed on my behalf? What defects do I have?” MaXulu asks confidently, knowing that she lacks no human quality even though she was not brought up the way her husband expects every sane person to have been.
    “What about those big pimples?” Sithole says, his face brightening. It’s amazing how revenge sometimes heals the soul. Sithole is even able to entertain a dry smile now. “It’s not even pimples. It’s
ikhambi
.”
    “But I’m beautiful in spite of them,” MaXulu says triumphantly.
    Sithole is glad she responds thus. Just what he needs. “Oh-ho! You are just saying that to please yourself.” He tries to prevent himself from laughing. “Do you think I was telling the truth when I said it is our tradition that Sithole men don’t kiss women? I only said that because I did not know where to kiss you with those giant pimples on your face.”
    MaXulu feels like screaming. She knows she has a disease that causes the worst kind of pimples on her face, but her husband has always told her she