The Heart Of Redness

The Middle Generations

So many people had starved to death that “[c]orpses and skeletons were a common sight […] No one had the strength to bury them” (253). In an effort to keep his son alive, Twin goes back to raiding, but now he and the other Believers are starting to steal from the white colonists. While Twin keeps his faith in the prophets, Qukezwa insists they take refuge in the land of the amaMfengu. Once they arrive, they, like many other Believers, are able to trade their labor for shelter. While Qukezwa is satisfied to be able to feed her son, Twin finds the work humiliating. He threatens to leave, entertaining the thought of reuniting with Twin-Twin. However, Qukezwa knows that Twin-Twin will never forgive his brother after everything Twin has done.

Even though Twin continues to receive protection from the colonial government, he is resentful: 

The Man Who Named Ten Rivers, who had styled himself The Great Benefactor of the Non-European Peoples of the World, was taking advantage of the defenseless amaXhosa and was grabbing more and more of their land for white settlement (256). 

Additionally, Sir George complains about “indiscriminate benevolence” (257) and instructs the chief of the amaMfengu to “expel those amaXhosa who had found refuge among his people. Twin and Qukezwa were among the thousands of people who were driven out of the land of the amaMfengu” (258). Because Twin is too weak to be picked up by one of the colonial labor officers, “[h]e ended up an inmate of the Kaffir Relief House, and there he lived with people made raving mad by starvation, until he went raving mad himself” (258). Qukezwa and Heitsi are forced to wander from village to village and beg for food.

Twin-Twin, blaming The Man Who Named Ten Rivers for planting the seed for cattle-killing, and blaming the amaXhosa for allowing themselves to be conquered, becomes “disillusioned with all religions. He therefore invented his own Cult of the Unbelievers—elevating unbelieving to the heights of a religion” (259).

Post-Apartheid South Africa

Bhonco is “at the height of misery” (259). The abaThwa won’t lend them their dance anymore, and he and his fellow Unbelievers are unsuccessful in creating a dance that will let them travel to the time of the Middle Generations. He is also feeling intense loneliness. NoPetticoat is spending more and more time with the cooperative society as “she has gained a reputation as the best sewer of umbhaco, which are decorations of black strips that are made on isikhakha skirts and on modern shirts that are inspired by the isikhakha tradition” (260). 

Xoliswa Ximiya feels betrayed by her mother’s defection to the cooperative society: “She had successfully weaned her parents from redness, until NoPetticoat’s rebellion” (260). However, Xoliswa Ximiya has other problems. Not only does she have to accept that she will never win Camagu back, but she has to live with the gossip in the village. Many blame Xoliswa Ximiya for her own broken heart. They say it is payment for when she was “stingy with her love” (262) and drove Zim’s son Twin away. Additionally, Xoliswa Ximiya “wakes up one day and finds that the scars of history have erupted on her body” (261). Bhonco and NoPetticoat never had a son. When others tried to convince Bhonco to take a second wife, he refused: “Now here their daughter is getting the scars. ‘What else did they expect?’ ask the wagging tongues. ‘She is a man in a woman’s body. That is why no man can tame her’” (262). Xoliswa Ximiya takes a position with the Department of Education in Pretoria. Bhonco has “lost” his wife, his daughter, and the ability to travel back in time.

At Zim’s homestead, the battle over his soul continues to be waged between NoEngland and Qukezwa. Meanwhile, NomaRussia insists on staying outside of Zim’s door, hoping that he will intervene with NoEngland on her behalf. Camagu finds himself torn between his commitment to Qukezwa and his attachment to

NomaRussia. He admits to the young woman, “Yes. I am engaged to Qukezwa. But it is you who brought me here. It is about you that I dreamt. She merely invaded those dreams” (264). Camagu offers to pay for NomaRussia to live the rest of her short life in relative comfort in a hospice, but she refuses: “No, I will sit here […] at this homestead that brought this on me. I will die here. Let my death hang on their necks for the rest of their days” (266). 

When Zim refuses to die, the relatives think it may be because he wants to say goodbye to his son, but NomaRussia tells them that Twin is dead. NomaRussia had gone to Johannesburg to ask Twin to appeal to NoEnglands’s “sense of mercy” (267) and lift the curse, but he was already dead. It was at his wake that Camagu first heard NomaRussia singing. When Twin started making wooden carvings in Qolorha-by-Sea, they were abstract. Dalton then encouraged Twin to make realistic-looking figures so that they would sell better. When Twin went to Johannesburg, no one wanted to buy his realistic carvings and he eventually starved to death. After being told of his son’s death, Zim dies, followed shortly by NomaRussia:

This fuels further anger among the Believers. This unscrupulous woman would not leave Zim alone, they fume. Even when he was called by his wife, she forced her way to accompany him. Now Zim has taken his mistress with him to the world of the ancestors. There is going to be a big war between her and NoEngland (267). 

Camagu has to wait for Qukezwa and Heitsi to join him at the cottage until after the isizathu, a ceremony for Zim that will take place months after his death. Meanwhile, a surveyor comes to prepare the land for the upcoming developments. But just when it seems that the cause for preservation is lost, Dalton swoops in:

‘I am afraid there won’t be any gambling city, my friend.’ Dalton hands [the surveyor] a piece of paper. It is a court order forbidding any surveying of the place. It is accompanied by a letter from the government department of arts, culture, and heritage declaring the place a national heritage site. ‘No one is allowed to touch this place!’ Dalton shouts triumphantly (269).

Post-Apartheid South Africa

Six-year-old Heitsi plays on the sandbank, while “Qukezwa paddles at the shallow end of the lagoon and sings in split–tones” (271). Her song summons the past.

The Middle Generations

The song illustrates how The Man Who Named Ten Rivers conquered the amaXhosa people: 

Pacified homesteads are in ruins. Pacified men register themselves as pacified laborers in the emerging towns. Pacified men in their emaciated thousands. Pacified women remain to tend the soil and build pacified families. When pacified men return, their homesteads have been moved elsewhere, and crammed into tiny pacified villages. Their pacified fields have become rich settler farmlands (272).

Twin knows his brother “died a raving lunatic at the Kaffir Relief House” and that his brother’s wife is “the woman of the sea that everyone talks about” (272), but he does nothing to help his sister-in-law and nephew: “There are two big regrets that dominate his life: that his brother died before he could gloat over him, and that he never took the chance to strike out at John Dalton, to avenge his father’s head” (272). Twin-Twin has too much to lose. He must leave it up to future generations to avenge his father’s death.

Post-Apartheid South Africa

It has been six years since Zim has died, and Bhonco feels that he has lost everything. Bhonco blames Dalton for bringing Camagu to the village and standing with Camagu against progress. Bhonco feels that the only way to set things right “is to see to it that Xikixa’s head is restored” (273). He seeks out the businessman, and when he finds Dalton, he says, “Give me the head of Xikixa” (274). Bhonco then hits Dalton in the head with his knobkerrie, a short stick with a knob on top, and then stabs him twice with his panga knife:

Blood spurts out and sprays the walls. Missis runs from her tiny office wailing. Screaming clerks and salespeople join her. Bhonco lashes out at everyone. He is foaming at the mouth as he screeches about the head that has caused him misery. Customers and passersby finally grab him and disarm him. Dalton is unconscious on the floor. He is bleeding profusely from a gaping wound on the head and another one on the arm (275).

The Middle Generations and Post-Apartheid South Africa

In the last couple of pages of the book, the ancestors merge with the people of modern day Qolorha-by-Sea. Not only does Bhonco avenge his ancestor’s beheading, but the Qukezwa of the early aughts seems to transition into the Qukezwa of the Middle Generations. Both of their sons are afraid of the sea. 

The prophetesses live with Major John Gawler and his wife. They put them on display, before they sail with them to Cape Town and have them “incinerated with a large number of female prisoners and transportees” (276). Nongqawuse’s legacy lives on, and a strong tourist trade emerges in Qolorha-by-Sea by people who are interested in the prophesies of the Middle Generations.

Camagu visits Dalton in the hospital. He tells Dalton that Bhonco has been arrested. He goes on to say, “This rivalry of ours is bad. Our feud has lasted for too many years. Five. Almost six. And for what? Nothing!” (277). In response, “Dalton groans his agreement” (277), and the two men make peace. 

The book ends with Qukezwa and Heitsi, but it is not clear whether is it the mother and son of the Middle Generations, or the modern Qukezwa and Heitsi: 

Oh, this Heitsi! He is afraid of the sea? How will he carry out the business of saving his people? Qukezwa grabs him by the hand and drags him into the water. He is screaming and kicking wildly. Wild waves come and cover them for a while, then rush back again. Qukezwa laughs excitedly. Heitsi screams even louder, pulling away from her grip, ‘No, mama! No! This boy does not belong in the sea! This boy belongs in the man village!’ (277).