It had been almost a week since the drowning. Janet’s eyes remained puffy and swollen. She wasn’t coping. Despite the Schedule Five medication she had been prescribed, she still woke up at least twice a night. Each reoccurring nightmare ending in the desperate plea of Jonah and followed by the horror of her son falling backwards into the raging waters of Metsimaholo.

Hendrik hadn’t bathed in three days. Taudiarora had tried to warn him, but he wanted to be seen as progressive and forward thinking. He had failed to put up more of a fight at council. At the river, on that tragic afternoon, he had failed to be more vigilant and his carelessness had come at the ultimate price. Now his wife refused to speak to him and he no longer recognized the dishevelled shadow in the mirror.

“Hendrik Jan Joubert. You have failed.” He slumped into his leather chair, revolver resting in his lap. “You failed your son,” he sobbed quietly. “You failed…” he paused to snivel and try wipe away the snot that threatened to join the stream of tears. “Your wife … your family … You failed them all!” He lifted up the suicide note and tried to stop shaking long enough to read it one more time through blurry eyes, but then he pictured Jonah’s little face the day he gave him a pony as a sixth birthday present.

“Jonah” he sobbed. “My pride and joy. Please forgive me my boy. Ek is jammer.” The mucous and tears had now become one as he heaved and shuddered, eyes bloodshot, skin as ashy as the living dead.

He looked over at the framed father-and-son photograph on the other end of the large varnished mahogany table. He remembered that day clearly. He and his dad had just returned from an auction, and his dad had surprised him by purchasing him a stallion as an early birthday present. In the photograph he was sitting tall just in front of his dad, beaming at the camera. “Ek is so so jammer, Pa,” was all he could manage. He placed the muzzle of the .38 Special in his mouth.

His forefinger was resting on the trigger when he heard a voice from the doorway say, “If you want to see your son again, please Hendrik, put that thing down.”

Hendrik’s eyes shot open as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. He jerked his head towards what he thought was a locked door. Taudiarora’s eyes pleaded with him not to be foolish; to put the weapon down.

When the elder noticed the disbelieving expression on the farmer’s face he said “I know. It sounds crazy. You saw him get swept away and the police spent days looking for …” He couldn’t bring himself to make reference to the boy’s body so instead he opted for: “Your boy needs you now more than ever before. Are you coming?”

Hendrik was too shocked to speak, so he slowly rose from his wing-backed leather swivel chair. Without taking his eyes off Mmabokwadi and Mmaditoro’s husband, he picked up his car keys and coat.

“Where’s Janet?” Taudiarora whispered as they walked through the house that had become a torture chamber housing memories of happier times. Hendrik stopped as they were about to walk past the spacious lounge and pointed at his wife, in a drug-induced dream where she could still hold her son tight to her bosom and take pleasure in hearing him giggle as she tucked him into bed. Taudiarora peered around Hendrik’s now scrawny frame and nodded his acknowledgment.

“Best she rest,” he mumbled as he placed his arm across Hendrik’s back, barely reaching his shoulder, and guided him towards the front door.

Back at his homestead Taudiarora took a handful of mpepha and a few teaspoons of snuff wrapped in a small plastic from Mmabokwadi. With his medicine bag now slung over his shoulder he hurriedly led a now anxious Hendrik into the ancestral hut.  At the door of the hut an enamel bowl awaited them, filled with water and a few pieces of lekgala.

“Let’s wash our hands,” he said to the boy’s father as they both bent down and rubbed their hands together in the cold water.

Hendrik was intrigued by the blue and white beaded necklace with multiple strands that now swayed to and fro from Taudiarora’s neck. It had a single large claw in the middle. He had known his father’s dear friend all his life, but he had never seen that particular necklace.

“It was my father’s,” smiled Ngaka as he broke the suicidal one’s thoughts. Hendrik nodded.

“When we go inside keep your eyes on me and me only.” The traditional healer looked and sounded stern. “There are things beyond this door that you will not understand and we must maintain respect at all times. Once you step into this hut you leave the land of the living and enter the world of the immortals, ancestors and spirits. Trust me, and comply with whatever their instructions, and we may be able to plead with them to spare your son.” Without waiting for what he knew would be an obvious response, they entered the hut and closed the door behind them.

Tell us: Do you think there is a way to live with both science and tradition or does it have to be one or the other? What examples have you seen where they are successfully combined?