When Kumalo saw the beautiful girl at her father’s house he knew that he would have to marry her. The girl was shy and did not look at him, but he could tell that she was beyond doubt the most beautiful girl in that part of the country.
“How many cattle would I have to give you to marry your daughter?” he asked the father.
The father looked at Kumalo and could tell that he was a rich man.
“That girl is very beautiful,” he said.
“I can see that,” said Kumalo. “You must be proud of her.”
“The man who marries her will have to give me lots of cattle,” went on the father.
“How many?” asked Kumalo. “I am sure that I will have that many.”
“Fifty,” said the father.
Even for Kumalo that was a very large number of cattle, but he agreed with the father that he would give them to him in return for the privilege of marrying his daughter. The father seemed pleased and called other people across to witness the bargain.
“I must warn you about something,” he said after they had agreed on the day when the cattle would be delivered. “Many beautiful girls cannot work very hard. That girl is so beautiful that she cannot work at all.”
Kumalo was surprised by this, but quickly promised that the girl would never have to do any work in his household.
“That is good,” said the father. “She will be happy with you.”
There were other women who lived at Kumalo’s place. These were aunts and cousins and other relatives, and they all had large huts where they kept all their property and ate their meals at night. They were happy living with Kumalo and they were pleased when he told them that he would be getting married. They prepared a great feast for his new wife and when she arrived they all cried with joy when they saw how beautiful she was. On the first day that she spent at Kumalo’s house, people came from all the nearby hills to look at the beautiful girl. Then they went back and told their families about her beauty and about how many cattle Kumalo had given her father.
Kumalo explained to everybody at his house that his new wife was too delicate to do any work.
“This beautiful girl will have to sit in the shade all day,” he said. “She can watch you work, but she must do nothing herself. I have promised her father that.”
So, while the other women performed the many tasks that had to be carried out around a house, the new wife sat in the doorway of one of the huts and watched them go about their tasks. She said nothing while she watched, but the women could feel her eyes on them as they worked.
After a few weeks, Kumalo’s senior cousin complained to one of the other women about the new wife.
“She sits there all day,” she said bitterly. “She eats her share of the food – and more – but she does nothing in return.”
The other woman agreed.
“I have seen her too,” she said. “There is no reason why she should not do some work as well. She has the strength.”
Other women, hearing these remarks, joined in the protests. They did not say anything to Kumalo himself, knowing that he had promised his father-in-law that the new wife should not work, but every day now they stared at the new wife and tried to make her feel guilty about not working. The new wife, however, just stared back at the other women, a sweet smile on her face.
Eventually the senior cousin decided that she would act. She had had enough of watching the new wife do nothing while the rest of them laboured and she went up to her and told her that the time had come for her to work. Kumalo had gone to a far place to buy cattle and would not be back until the next day – it would be safe for them to make the new wife work.
The new wife did not object. Rising to her feet, she asked the senior cousin what she had to do and quietly took the calabash that was given to her.
“It is easy work just to fill this small calabash with water,” said the cousin. “Even a beautiful woman like you can do that.”
The other women stopped their work and watched the new wife walk off towards the river. As she disappeared into the thick grass that grew there, they all laughed.
“At long last that lazy woman is having to work,” they said. “Today at least she cannot sit in her doorway and watch us working.”
* * *
The new wife found the place in the river where water was to be drawn. She filled the calabash with ease and then turned round to begin her walk back. As she walked across the sandbank at the edge of the river, though, she felt the weight of the calabash getting greater and greater. She sensed the sand coming up around her ankles and found that it was more and more difficult to lift her feet. Then she found that her feet were sinking and that no matter what she did she could not free them. She was so light and delicate that the weight of the calabash was pushing her down into the ground, and in the time that it takes a bird to fly from one tree to another she had sunk completely out of sight.
The other women waited for her to return to the house so that they could laugh at her and send her back to the river for more water. After they had waited for some time, they began to feel uneasy.
“Perhaps she has run away,” said one of the women.
“She would not do that,” another said. “She must be hiding. She is trying to give us a fright.”
The senior cousin decided that they should go and find the new wife and so the women all left their work and followed the footprints down to the river bank. They searched and searched all along the river and in the bush beside it, but there was no trace of the new wife. Wailing loudly, they returned to the house wondering what they would be able to tell Kumalo when he came back the following day.
“We shall say that she was eaten by a lion,” suggested one of the women. “That way he will not be able to blame us.”
Kumalo came back to the house early the next morning bringing with him the cattle that he had bought. He was in a good mood after having bought fine cattle, but his smile faded when he saw that his new wife was not in her usual place.
“Where is my beautiful wife?” he asked the women. “She was sitting in her doorway when I left.”
The women all looked at the senior cousin, who answered with the lie that she had prepared.
“A lion ate her,” she said. “We tried to stop it, but it was too hungry.”
Kumalo looked at his senior cousin.
“You are lying,” he said. “A lion would not choose a delicate girl like that. It would rather eat a fat woman like you.”
The cousin said nothing, but when Kumalo shook his fist at her she told the truth.
“We only asked her to do a little work,” she whined. “It was not too hard.”
Kumalo did not listen any more. Immediately he ran to a man who lived nearby who knew all about finding people who had been lost. This man listened to Kumalo’s sad story and then told him what to do.
“Go to the side of the river,” he said. “Beat this small drum and get a fat woman to jump hard on the ground. That will bring back your beautiful wife.”
Kumalo ran back to his house, the sound of his beating heart loud in his ears. He called the senior cousin to follow him and made his way quickly to the side of the river. There he played the drum, while the senior cousin jumped up and down on the sand. It was hard for her to do this, as she was so fat, but each time she showed signs of slowing down Kumalo would shout at her and urge her on.
At last they saw the sand parting and the head of the new wife slowly appeared.
“Jump faster!” ordered Kumalo, and as the senior cousin continued to jump the rest of the new wife was forced up out of the sand.
When the new wife had risen completely out of the sand, Kumalo went forward and embraced her tenderly. Then he led her back to the place where she used to sit and watch the women working. The senior cousin, ashamed of what they had done, promised they would never ask the new wife to work again. Although he was angry with the other women, Kumalo forgave them, and that night they all had a feast to celebrate the return of the new wife to her husband.
