A Coat of Many Colours

By Fred Khumalo

In A Coat of Many Colours Fred Khumalo presents a patchwork of various vibrant stories befitting the collection’s title. With genres ranging from noir crime to comedy; realism to surrealism, readers are treated to true variety. Characters of different races, ages, classes and genders add to the diversity of the collection and reflect the South African society: A boy plays detective in the case of a goat and a coat; a woman takes revenge; a man is cursed with an ever-growing appendage; and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kwela
• Release date: Apr 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9780795710155

Fred Khumalo

Fred Khumalo is an award-winning author with twelve books to his name. His novel Dancing the Death Drill won an NIHSS Award and his short story collection Talk of the Town won the Nadine Gordimer Award. He holds an MA Creative Writing from Wits University and is a PhD (Creative Writing) candidate at the University of Pretoria.

Book preview

2.

‘What’s wrong with these people – did they wet their beds this morning? Why are they not yet here?’ Buthelezi, Vusi’s grandpa, is muttering. Decked out in his khaki shorts, leopard-print vest and sandals made from the remains of a car tyre, he is pacing nervously up and down in front of a marquee that is located in the yard of his house. His daughter Charity listens with her head bowed.

Every time Vusi’s mother takes up a major case, she consults her sangoma for advice. When she told the sangoma about the case she was about to tackle, the medicine woman ordered her to slaughter a white goat for good luck. She had to do the slaughtering, not in the suburbs where she lived, but at her ancestral home, in the township where she was born.

Charity says: ‘I’ve noticed that some of them are taking the coronavirus thing seriously. Some are wearing masks and gloves.’

‘Real men have died away. The place is now awash with educated fools like yourself. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that this corona thing is not meant for us! It’s for rich people.’

Charity picks at a speck on her overalls. ‘We have to be careful how we give these people food and drink. I am going to provide each one with a paper cup, to drink their beer from.’

Her father explodes: ‘That is not going to happen! They are going to drink from a common calabash, as per our tradition. If they can’t abide by that, they are free to go! What has this world come to?’

Charity speaks quietly: ‘The president has spoken. People cannot drink from the same calabash. That’s the law.’

‘Then the foolish man you call a president must come here and arrest me! Or do you want to arrest me yourself, daughter? What are my ancestors going to say if I don’t serve my guests in a proper calabash? Paper cups! Pah!’ He lowers his mask and spits on the ground.

Charity knows she can never win an argument against her father. She has seen her fellow police officers on the frontline of this pandemic and she knows it is real, but to Buthelezi, she will always be a child who cannot teach him, her father. She will have to work diplomatically around the issue of paper cups and separate plates.

She tunes out her father and mentally ticks off tasks on her to-do list. She has made the main fire. Tick. She got her son, Vusi, to help her place a boundary of bricks around it. Tick. On the bricks, they placed the legs of the massive black three-legged pot. In the pot, they poured fifteen litres of water. Tick and tick. They made the smaller fire and settled the smaller pot over it. Tick. Then they washed their hands thoroughly with strong soap, as per the anti-coronavirus demonstrations on TV. She released Vusi after that to go read his comic book.

Overnight, the slaughtered goat was hung from the rafters of the garage, so as to properly bleed it. In the absence of younger men in Buthelezi’s household, Charity had to help her father with the carcass. Normally this is the work of the men, while the cleaning of the goat’s intestines, liver and all the other organs is set aside for the women. Charity’s mother oversaw the cleaning of the organs the previous evening, so that they would be ready for cooking today. This morning, Charity and her father quartered the carcass. The head and limbs were put in the smaller pot, the rest of the carcass plunged into the big pot. The meat was salted properly.

‘How is the fire going?’ she hears her father say. He is making his way from the marquee to the other side of the yard, where the fires are hidden from view. She follows him to the gazebo where the fires have been lit. The gazebo is wedged between Buthelezi’s back wall, and the wall that divides his property from his neighbour’s. It’s a discreet corner.

‘You need a strong fire for the cooking of the meat,’ her father says for the umpteenth time. ‘While the recipe is not complicated – there are no spices and funny things like that – the cooking has to be monitored properly. The meat can’t be overcooked, or half-cooked. Otherwise people are going to gossip about us the whole year.’

‘Yes, Father,’ she says dutifully.

Smoke starts billowing from the fire and finally the first neighbour walks into the yard.

Her father rushes to give the customary greetings to the people from the neighbourhood who are trickling in. After the greetings, they make themselves comfortable on the plastic chairs Charity set out inside the marquee.

Some of the older men look distastefully at the younger bucks with their masks and gloves. Buthelezi has pushed his mask lower, so that it now covers only his chin – as if he’s asking to be made into a Twitter meme.

Charity is in two minds about the whole thing: her educated mind and her experience on the police force tell her that she should be abiding by the rules of social distancing; but her Zulu cultural sentiments say that if you slaughter a goat and people don’t come to your function, the ancestors won’t be happy.

3.

It is quarter to twelve. The meat is still far from ready. But the people in the yard, inside and outside the marquee, are like worms on a rotting buffalo carcass. There are voices raised in song.

Vusi follows his grandfather to the mouth of the tent. When the old man sees his grandson, he hastily pulls up his mask. Too late. Vusi points an accusing finger at him.

‘Who are all these people, Grandpa?’ Vusi asks.

‘I don’t know all of them,’ his grandfather replies. ‘I can recognise some faces. But many of them are unknown to me. That’s not an issue. I don’t need to know them, as I didn’t invite them.’

‘Who invited them then?’ Vusi asks, surprised. He thought his grandpa was in charge of the household and the celebration.

‘No one invited them.’

Vusi’s mouth falls open behind his mask. He looks at all the people around him. ‘Then why are they here?’

His grandfather laughs. ‘In the township you don’t have to be invited. When you see a marquee and people milling about the yard, you have to make a turn at the house. You don’t even have to know who lives in that house. You’d be passing by, walking to your destination, and you’d see a marquee, some smoke billowing and people moving about the yard, then you’d have to deviate from your way. You have to make a turn at the house where the feast is being held. It is considered rude if you simply pass by. You have to drop in on the revellers, greet them, take a piece of meat, and a sip of traditional beer. That’s how it is done.’

Vusi, still hovering about in front of the tent, sees a tall wiry man walk through the gate into his grandpa’s yard. Very light in complexion, he must be around Vusi’s mother’s age, in his early thirties.

Vusi’s mother appears at his side and sees him looking. ‘That’s Qina,’ she says. ‘Used to be a celebrity around here.’

‘That man appeared on TV?’ Vusi doesn’t want to believe this.

‘Not all celebrities appear on TV.’

‘You’re not a celebrity if you don’t appear on TV.’

‘What I mean is, he used to be a big-name soccer player.’

Vusi looks at the man’s broken shoes. At his unruly beard. But it’s the man’s knee-length coat that has him giggling. Slightly oversized, it has so many colourful patches, it is difficult to guess at its original colour. Vusi starts singing a Dolly Parton song, one of his mother’s favourites: ‘A coat of many colours …’

Charity smiles. But then she becomes serious. ‘It’s rude to laugh at other people’s misfortunes, Vusi.’

‘I’m not laughing. Just admiring his coat of many colours, Ma! Like in that song you’re always playing on your car stereo.’

4.

Charity looks at the former soccer player she used to admire. She’s heard sad stories about Qina. Talk of him being arrested for petty theft, and being beaten up by neighbours for bag snatching. She recognises the sad truth that if you are a young black man without a job or education in this country, you are at the mercy of the vagaries of life.

‘Look at the striker!’ someone cries out from inside the marquee. ‘Qina, did your mother make that coat for you?’

Qina fumes: ‘Mawewe, I bought this coat from Eglas, man.’

The young men burst out laughing for they know he means Edgars. And everyone knows he could never afford to buy from that department store.

One of the men starts singing praises to the former football gladiator. Qina’s face beams with joy and satisfaction. They still remember his footballing prowess.

Charity peers inside the tent. Although everyone is sitting under the same roof, there are clear lines of demarcation here. These are based roughly on age, or marital status. The greybeards sit on proper chairs in their own corner. Married men sit with their peers. Young men who are not married, but are too old to be regarded as boys, sit in their own group. And, finally, boys squat on their haunches in their own corner.

Qina smiles again, bows his head and joins the group of young unmarried men. He plants himself on an upturned bucket, rolls a zol of dagga. The greybeards in the group cast a nasty glance at him. Somebody mutters disapproval, but one of the talkative greybeards says: ‘It’s a good thing this government has finally legalised marijuana. This is the herb of our ancestors that has been given a bad name over the years. I’d rather these boys smoke dagga than drink alcohol and sniff that infernal woonga.’

This sparks a louder debate among the older men. The youngsters are highly entertained by the loud exchanges.

Charity’s father joins her. The old man says to Charity: ‘Now, you go ahead and give those men something to drink. Remember, before you send the calabash on its journey around the marquee, explain in no uncertain terms to those men to make it last. The meat should be ready around 2 p.m., don’t you think?’

Charity nods and goes to the house to fetch a medium-size clay calabash. Back inside the marquee, she places the vessel carefully on the ground. ‘Neighbours, welcome. We’re honoured to have you, those known to us, and those who are setting foot on these premises for the first time. You’re all our brothers. While we await the arrival of a piece of fat to wipe our lips with, may I ask you to take a sip from the calabash. It’s only a humble offering. We have not brewed a whole ocean of beer, just something to clear the dust from your throat.’

She squats on her haunches. She hesitates, thinking about what she said to her father about coronavirus. But she comforts herself: I’m the only one who’s touched the calabash so far, and my hands are clean.

She takes a sip. As the representative of the family, she is obliged to take the first sip – to remove the poison, as the Zulu expression goes. Some men in the group shake their heads in disapproval. She knows they are thinking that this is not a job for a woman.

‘Our neighbours will know that I’m my father’s only child, so I am a woman and a man!’ she says, addressing the concern written on their faces. ‘You have to live with that, I am afraid.’

Some neighbours laugh. Those who’ve known her from when she was a young girl are aware that she can fight the strongest boys around. She has a black belt in karate. She also carries a licensed gun. After all, she is a detective in the police force. There’s nothing a man does that she cannot do. The strangers, not used to being served by a woman at a traditional ceremony, look into each other’s eyes and shake their heads again.

Charity passes the calabash to the next pair of expectant hands. She surveys the men, thinking: Maybe we are helping to spread the virus. Eish, how do I balance tradition with this modern disease?

She remembers that when she suggested to her father that the people should drink the beer from their own individual cups, he would not hear of it.

5.

Vusi is walking around the yard, working the Case of the Missing Goat. Despite the horrible noises he heard the previous night, he is clinging to the hope that slaughtering doesn’t mean the goat was killed. Can’t the goat give them meat without dying? If only he could find it and be sure.

He comes across his grandpa next to the fires under the gazebo, where he sits, hidden from view from the marquee. The pots are on the fire next to him.

Vusi takes a seat on the ground at his grandpa’s feet and watches the flames. He is working up the courage to ask his grandpa what happened to the goat.

His mother appears and says: ‘I have given them something to drink, Father.’

His grandpa grunts from his wooden stool.

She continues: ‘As I predicted, the younger men have asked me to pour their drinks in individual mugs or paper cups.’

His grandpa grunts again. He pushes his mask down onto his chin. ‘As long as my agemates are drinking from the calabash, I am fine. As for your boys, they are already a lost generation. I don’t care.’

Vusi’s grandpa picks up his long homemade wooden fork. ‘Come, Vusi, let me show you how the meat is cooking,’ he says.

Vusi goes to stand next to his grandpa. As his grandpa opens the pot, Vusi inhales the heady aroma of meat. But then he sees the head of the goat glaring at him. He clamps his hand over his mouth to keep from screaming and takes a few quick steps away.