We continued down the corridor.
“Baragwanath Hospital. If you’ve got a stabbed heart, this is where you wanna be.” All that was missing from Thabo’s advertisement was some corny jingle.
I didn’t respond; I didn’t feel like being lighthearted or silly.
“Seriously, they’ve got the best success rate in the world. Doctors here do more thoracotomies for stabbed hearts than in any other hospital in the world.”
A long, lean man crossed in front of us, pushing a drip stand connected to him by a lone translucent tube that burrowed into the back of his hand. He wore just pajama bottoms. Every rib on his spare torso was delineated, like ripples on a dark pond. And running down the middle of his trunk, from chin to navel, was a thick ridge of fleshy pink skin, freshly stitched.
“Sawubona,” he said in greeting.
His eyes gave no clue as to what it felt like to have cheated death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
April
My dear David,
I have sat down to write to you so many times, and each time, I’ve found myself unable to. In part, it’s because I have so little to tell; I’m no closer to tracing my mother than when I arrived six weeks ago. In part, my delay has also been because I have so much to say and I don’t really know where to start.
The last month and a half has been unbelievable—weeks, days, and hours crammed with new experience—I feel as though I’ve lived a hundred years. Finally I’ve managed to fill some of the holes in my life with “living” that feels real. And I’ve certainly been changed. Like a clay figurine first pummeled into a shapeless ball, I am now being remodeled. I can’t yet see the whole, but already I catch glimpses of a new me.
Living in this country with a black face has been indescribable. In every way I’m handicapped by my color. Sometimes being black has made me feel so worthless I’ve found myself apologizing for just existing. It’s terrible to feel so without worth and so inherently bad.
What I can say in favor of the lawmakers here is that at least they’re honest. There’s no pretense. They tell the world we’re second-class citizens and treat us accordingly. Growing up in England was more confusing. I was encouraged to believe I was like everyone else, so my disappointment was all the greater when I realized I wasn’t. Equality for all—that’s such a farce. Here in South Africa you quickly learn to curtail your expectations, because there are no false promises.
Thabo has been my salvation. One day I hope you two meet. He reminds me a lot of you—principled and practical. He’s kept my hope alive. It’s extraordinary how he manages to keep his self-esteem intact, his morale high, and his vision so clear in the face of such adversity. He also has a great sense of humor, which definitely prevents life from getting too serious. In fact, most of the black Africans I’ve met do. When I think of them I think of easy smiles, genuine goodwill, and infectious laughter. Amazing, considering the regime they live under.
These past weeks I’ve tasted African life at its most raw. I’ve sung in churches. Yes, me in a church, can you believe it! I’ve danced in a shebeen (a local illegal drinking house) and hidden under floorboards when the police raided it. I’ve met people in the dead of the night who risk their lives and sanity every day, to fight this government. I’ve eaten mielie pap and gravy with my fingers (thick cornmeal porridge), I’ve drunk home-brewed millet beer (a heady experience), and I’ve picked at chicken giblets in a meal shared with twelve other hungry mouths. I even got to wring the bird’s neck. Apparently an honor!
I’ve watched a young man, a boy really, bleed to death from stab wounds. I’ve seen an alleged police informer “necklaced”—burned to death by a mob who placed a car tire filled with fuel around his arms and chest and then lit it. (This horrific image will live forever in my head.) Yesterday, a clerk in Pretoria spat in my face. I’m getting used to being ignored in shops until all the white customers have been served. I could go on.
Dave, I’ve lived like an African, and laughed and cried like one. But strangely, wait for it, I don’t feel as if I belong here. Maybe I’m destined to straddle the two worlds, fitting into neither.
Most importantly I haven’t yet found my mother. We’ve explored every avenue and followed up on almost every lead, even resorting to pinning up random signs around Soweto, asking for any information on my mother’s whereabouts. The replies I’ve had have all been from “tsotsis”—criminals only after the reward.
I guess I’ve come to accept there is a good chance she is dead. What is so frustrating is that I’m sure, considering this is a country where the black population is so heavily regulated, information about her must be held by at least one government agency. Yet all my visits to government offices have been futile. Without exception, civil servants here are obstructive. They’ve thwarted my efforts at every turn, and failed to deliver anything despite some having extracted a hefty bribe first.
Days have been spent getting to places, either in Thabo’s car—a hair-raising experience in itself—or by train and bus. Then there’s been the waiting in eternal queues before being redirected from one department to another, only to eventually reach a dead end.
The infuriating thing is that I know she is out there somewhere, even if she’s lying in a box under a mound of earth. I suspect I won’t find her. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. At least I tried.
So unless I make some miraculous discovery, I plan to return to the UK in a fortnight. My funds are running low and my permit will soon expire. I’ll call when I’ve finalized the details. In the meantime, can you please let the university know I’ll be back to resume my clinical attachment.
Dave, I know we left the future open. Just know I miss you and love you.
Miriam xxx
A white and green blob appeared beside my name where Zaziwe had decided to leave her calling card.
—
The telephone pierced my dreams. I was loath to open my eyes, preferring the blankness of sleep, the faded lines and muted realities, the escape. The ringing continued.
I opened one eye. The room was awash with bright yellow light and there was a definite midmorning feel in the air. I sat up and reached for the alarm clock on the box beside my bed: 10:30 A.M.! How had I slept so late? The phone was still ringing, drilling holes through my head.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, found my balance, then stomped through to the kitchen. “Hello?” My tongue was thick and furry. “Rhadebe residence.”
The line crackled, then a woman’s voice. “Is Tayboe there?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Thabo. Look, I don’t think he is. I’ve just woken up and—”
“Never mind,” came the crisp, tailored voice. “Could I leave a message?”
Something in the voice sounded familiar. “Aren’t you the lady from Parktown North?”
“Yes. And you’re the British girl? The one looking for your mother. Have you had any luck?”
“Do you have something?” I couldn’t pace myself. I had no restraint left for courteous preamble.
“As a matter of fact I do.”
My heart cartwheeled inside my chest.
“I was clearing out my desk last night and found the Eloffs’ address. You know, the people from whom we bought the house. Got a pen handy?”
“Hang on.” I put the receiver down and darted about the room in search of a pen, eventually finding one in the cutlery tray.
“Sorry. Okay. Go ahead.”
There was nothing, just a hollow tinny silence.
“Hello. Hello?” I tapped the receiver, but there wasn’t even the reassuring hum of a dial tone. The line was dead. I slammed the receiver down and stood staring at the instrument, willing it to ring. Every few seconds I lifted it to check, but still there was no dial tone. I fiddled with the jack, tipped the telephone upside down, shook it . . . Nothing!
When Thabo swung throu
gh the front door an hour later, he found me pacing about the room in a crazed state. He put down his parcels on the kitchen table. “Morning.”
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Is everything okay?” Concern clouded his face. “I thought I’d let you sleep in while I went to buy some milk and bread. Were you worried?”
“How come it took you over an hour just to buy milk and bread?”
Thabo looked at me bemused.
“That woman rang, the one from Parktown North,” I shouted. “Something about my mother. Then the phone went dead and . . . and I’ve lost the only lead we’ve had in seven bloody weeks!” I started to sob.
Thabo walked over to the phone and lifted the receiver. He shook his head. “Murphy’s law. They must have cut us off.”
“Who?” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“Murphy,” he said. “Only joking. It will have been the phone company. I haven’t paid last month’s bill. I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t? Why?”
Then I realized. I sank down into a chair, overcome with guilt and embarrassment. The phone bill would have been hefty, due to all the calls I’d made. I felt so ashamed, I didn’t know where to look.
“I’m so sorry,” Thabo said again. “And just at a breakthrough.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry. God, how rude of me! It was just that, it was the first time we were going to get some useful information, and now we . . .” I buried my head in my hands and tears took over. I couldn’t stop them. I was crying as much for my own appalling behavior as for the terminated phone call. I was crying for Dave—I missed him so much—and for the emotional seesaw I’d been on. I was crying for Thabo and every other black person living in this forsaken country. It all poured out, weeks of pent-up emotion.
Eventually I felt a soft, warm hand on the nape of my neck. “Don’t worry, I’ll go over to her today and hear the news in person. Thabo Rhadebe will not rest until he is victorious.”
And later that day I learned the Eloffs had moved to Knysna in the Cape—some one thousand miles south of Soweto.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Transvaal Highveld receded behind us. As we crossed the willow-lined Vaal River and ventured into the Orange Free State, the landscape started to change, as if the artist had been left with just two colors on his palette—gold and copper. The road we took cut through fields of wheat and corn, then valleys bounded by sandstone cliffs, which rose up starkly to greet us. There were turmeric-tinted poplars, sunflowers, and the surprise of green at the foothills of the Maloti Mountains.
We crossed another immense waterway—the Orange River—to find ourselves in the Cape Province. As we left the lushness of the river in our wake, the fertility of the land gave way to more barren surrounds. The Great Karoo—“land of thirst”—stretched endlessly in front of us. Now and then boulders cluttered a corner of the vast opus and flat-nosed mountains disturbed the emptiness, casting long shadows. Our small red car was dwarfed by the infinite space of this wider canvas, on which, toward the close of day, was painted a magnificent sunset.
Throughout the long journey, Africa wooed me, tantalizing my every sense. Its breath was sweet, its touch warm, its beauty astounding. Southern Africa wrapped itself around me and held me. And I surrendered to it, my heart soaring with this new love affair. I was home at last.
Thabo told me secrets guarded by the soil we were traveling over, and as we covered hundreds of miles, we traversed years of the black man’s struggle for self-determination and freedom in his own country.
“We are traveling in the opposite direction to the Boer farmers when they set off on the Great Trek away from the Cape many years ago,” Thabo began. “A bit like you, they were on their own personal journey. As they crossed the Orange River with their ox wagons they were forming part of a deliberate movement to cast off British governance, as well as any notion of black equality. They were headed for the largely unexplored Western Transvaal, Orange Free State, as we now know it, and Natal, where they could establish an independent society founded on the notion of white supremacy.”
He took a long swig from the bottle of Coca-Cola we were sharing.
“You know, just as this journey will impact on your future, the Voortrekkers’ expedition in the 1800s determined your past, for as the Boers pushed back the African tribes they met en route—an assegai no match for a gun—the native people, your forefathers, soon found themselves tenants on what they’d always considered to be their land.”
I felt a deep sadness as I listened.
“The Voortrekkers’ ideology of Afrikaner nationalism would, in time, be expanded into the doctrine of apartheid.”
The parched desert of the Karoo was disappearing as the geography made way for the Land of the Outeniqua.
“A Khoikhoi name,” Thabo explained, “meaning ‘man laden with honey.’”
It was breathtaking—the lush forests, sagging creepers, and staggering gorges.
And just when I thought this kaleidoscope of beauty would never end, we were there, at the tip of Africa, where land and sea vied.
We had just passed through a small seaside settlement, when a policeman waved us down. I could see my reflection in his sunglasses as he peered into our car.
“Dompas.” His voice was rough and abrasive.
Thabo leaned forward, stuck his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, and pulled out his worn green passbook. He put it into the policeman’s hands.
“Far from home, hey.”
“I have permiss—”
“What is the nature of your business?”
I could see Thabo’s teeth were clenched under the taut pull of his cheek. “I’m a journalist. I’m researching a story for The Star.”
“Communist trash!”
Another policeman made his way around to the rear of the car. “Maak oop,” he said, banging a fist on the boot. “Open up.”
I licked my lips. As Thabo ducked down to reach the boot lever in the footwell, he appeared to startle the policeman at his window.
“Get out! Get out! Put your hands on your head!” the man yelled, panic exciting his fury.
Blood was pounding in my head. A gun was at my temple, the cold ring of death pushing into me. Then we were both being forced up against opposite sides of the car, our hands behind our heads.
“Any firearms, weapons, hand grenades?”
The car’s metal burned into my front, and I could feel the heat of the body behind me.
“No . . . noth-nothing,” I stuttered.
Something hard was pushing into the small of my back. At first I thought it was the policeman’s R1, but it was throbbing. Then a hand was on my breast and fingers were squeezing my nipple. I felt the coolness of air on my legs as my skirt was lifted. A hand grabbed at my crotch and a knee forced my legs apart. I knew Thabo couldn’t see what was happening from his position on the other side of the car.
“And where are you hiding your passbook?” the voice snorted.
Perhaps it was my pained expression or the leering tone of the policeman’s words, but I saw Thabo’s countenance change—a fury I’d not thought him capable of suffused his expression.
“Leave her!” he cried. “She’s a British citizen. Her passport is in the car. Touch her again and your face will be on every front page here and overseas!” Not once did his voice falter.
I closed my eyes and counted time in breaths. I’d already inhaled three times when, like magic, the roving hand stopped and my skirt hem swung back down.
“Keep your hair on, Kaffir boy. Just a standard road check.”
I couldn’t believe it. A white man obeying a black man. The taut line of my fear slackened. But it was short-lived. How could I have been so stupid?
I watched the face of my molester as he circled the car—a scavenger eyeing its prey.
His expression was that of a child chastised and humiliated in front of his peers. I felt an impending sense of doom. I looked into the darkness of Thabo’s eyes.
Time slowed. I could smell the ocean. I could smell sweat. I saw the blunt bristles of the policeman’s mustache and the ripple of leaves on a roadside tree. I saw the thousand tiny bumps on Thabo’s skin acknowledge the breeze. I saw Zaziwe ruffle her feathers, puffing out her small body into a gray-brown ball. And I saw Thabo’s big, strong hand caress her.
I saw the policeman take this all in.
“Kyk die voel. Look at the bird,” said the smarting policeman, taking a swipe at Zaziwe and missing. For a moment Thabo’s dearest companion remained suspended in mid-air and then . . .
A deafening bang reverberated through the valley. Two meerkats scurried across the road, a pair of Egyptian geese took to the skies, and a rabbit darted into its warren.
“Nooo!” rang out in synchrony with the explosion, as feathers, blood, and spattered sparrow flesh splashed across the gun-blue sky.
—
We drove for twenty minutes, neither of us speaking. Zaziwe’s bloodied head rested on Thabo’s lap, her glassy eyes dulled by death and dust. Eventually Thabo slowed and we pulled up under a keurboom, next to a hillside of wild watsonia. He turned off the engine and just sat there, staring into the distance, his eyes navigating a different landscape.
I put my arm around his trembling body and fingered his wiry hair.
His tears were silent, unlike my hiccuping sobs.
Eventually our weeping gave way to calm as we were transported through the day on the conveyor belt of time. The shade from the tree was the only thing to move as the late-afternoon sun found its way patiently inside our car.
“Tell me about Zaziwe,” I said.
His words arrived with ease, as though they’d been ready for some time. “I was detained last year for four months. Kept in solitary confinement on suspicion of inciting subversive activities.” He swallowed. “It was a black hole in my life about which I choose to remember very little. I was a broken man, except for . . .” He glanced at his blood-drenched trousers and smiled.
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