Seas of South Africa

by Philip Roy

  “Thank you!” I said, and took off again. I ran to the hill. My lungs were dry and sore now. My feet were sore. But the worst was the sickness in my stomach from worry. A few more people came out to challenge me once I left the paved street and stepped onto the dirt, but I didn’t stop. As I ran up the last hill, I had to jump over a few ditches with sewage in them. They stank terribly. I saw a wooden rack that was stacked with the gutted carcasses of cows. In the dim light I saw that the skin and muscles had been scraped from the bone, but the heads were there, and they looked ghastly. A cloud of flies hit me in the face.

  I made it to the top of the hill and saw the long shed. The old men were still sitting there, though there were more of them now. I ran up to them and stopped, out of breath. I bent over because I thought I was going to be sick. When I raised my head, I saw two of the old men raise their hands and point, with very bony fingers, towards a larger shanty, about a hundred feet away. There was a small crowd outside of it. I nodded my head, thanked them, and headed towards the shed. As I neared the open door, the crowd moved to let me pass. Two men came out of the door. Then a third. They had horrible looks on their faces. They had blood on their hands.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  LOS WAS LYING ON the dirt floor. He was unconscious. I was afraid to touch him because I didn’t know how badly beaten he was, and didn’t want to make it worse. I knew that if a person has an injury to the spine, they have to be moved very carefully. I bent down close and put my fingers near his mouth. He was still breathing. I felt his wrist. His pulse seemed normal, maybe a bit slow. When my fingers brushed against his face, they came away wet. Blood. But it was dark in the shanty. I couldn’t see well. One thing I did know: he needed an ambulance. He had to go to the hospital now.

  “Los. I’ll be right back.” I knew he couldn’t hear me. I went outside. The small crowd had split up, and there were just a couple of people hanging around. They stared at me suspiciously. The old men still sat on the bench. I approached them. “I have to get an ambulance. Can you tell me how?”

  The old men looked sympathetic, but shook their heads. I didn’t know if they were shaking them because they didn’t know how, or because they didn’t speak English. I ran to another man. He had blood on his shirt. He had been involved in the beating. “Can you help me get an ambulance? Please?”

  He shook his head furiously and walked away. He had understood me; he just wouldn’t help. Then I saw a woman watching from the corner of the shed. She frowned and stared at the ground when she saw me coming. “It’ll take at least three hours,” she said angrily. “It might take five. You’d better get out of here now. They’re gonna come back. They might beat him again. And if they do, you don’t want to be here.”

  “If they beat him again, they will kill him. He’s got to go to the hospital now.”

  She looked at me with such anger in her face, but I think she wasn’t really angry. She was just feeling the same frustration and hopelessness I was feeling. “Child. Do you know where you are? This is Soweto. Soweto. It’s gonna take you forever to get that boy to the hospital. And you know what you’re gonna find when you get there?”

  “What?”

  “A twelve-hour wait.”

  “Twelve hours?”

  “That’s if he’s lucky. Child, you are standing in the most violent community in the world.” She pointed off in the distance. “That’s the busiest hospital in the world. That’s because people are killing each other every day, cutting each other up, and burning each other, and shooting each other, and beating each other. How many people do you think go there all cut up and shot and bleeding to death every day? Thousands! So, you can go call your ambulance, but it’s gonna take them hours even to make their way up here. That’s if they remember to come. What are you doin’ here anyway? You don’t belong here. How do you think you’re even gonna get out of here?”

  I didn’t know what to do. There had to be a way to get Los to the hospital. I couldn’t believe it would take twelve hours before he would get attention. I thought she was exaggerating. Surely once they saw that he was unconscious, they’d help him right away? On my way back to the shanty, I saw one of the old men get up from the bench. It took him a great effort just to get to his feet. His friends helped him, and they passed him a cane. He took a few steps in my direction and raised his hand towards me. I hurried over. He said something to me in another language and pointed across the way. It seemed urgent to him.

  “What?” I said. “What is it?”

  He kept pointing and urging.

  “What? Something over there?”

  He nodded and kept pointing. He wanted me to go over there, so I did. I crossed the dirt yard and approached a couple of shanties. I looked back at the old man. “This one?” He shook his head, but kept pointing. I turned to the next one. “This one?” He nodded and called something out. I pulled the door open a crack. It was dark inside, but I saw the glint of something shiny. I pulled the door further. It was the motorbike. Yes! I turned and waved to the old man. I entered the shanty, took the bike, rolled it under a hanging flap on the back of the shanty, and ran it across the yard as fast as I could and into the shanty where Los was. The old man sat back down, but now he was making a quick sweeping gesture with his hand. I knew what he was saying. He was saying, “Get out of here, quick!” Someone else had probably laid claim to the motorbike. They might think I was stealing it. We had to leave immediately.

  I didn’t want to move Los, but had no choice. And there was no one to help me. I ran to the door. The lady I had spoken with was still leaning on the corner, watching. I waved my arm to her to come. She didn’t move. I waved again with all the urgency I could show. Then I went back inside. I rolled the bike next to Los. I couldn’t get him inside without twisting his body. It was terrible. And then, the lady appeared. “Hurry up, child. Hurry up! They see you taking him away and you are dead. They see me helping you and I am dead, too.”

  “Please hold his head and shoulders as straight as you can,” I said. “I will lift his body.”

  She stood behind him and lifted from under his arms. I stood over him and lifted straight up by holding on to the tops of his pants. He was so heavy. We just barely got him into the sidecar. I had to twist his legs sideways to get them inside. I thought I heard him moan when I did that, but I wasn’t sure. We laid his head back, but there was nothing to hold it. Then she took off her sweater, rolled it up, and put it behind his neck. That helped. I took off my shirt and did the same. “Get out of here, child! Get out now, and never come back!”

  I nodded. “Which way is the hospital?”

  She pointed.

  “Which direction? North, south, east, west? Which way?”

  “North! Go!”

  I started the motor. As we pulled away, I looked into her face and saw the fear in her eyes. I also saw the care. I reached out with my fingertips. She took them with her hand and squeezed them. “Go!” I would never forget her. I rode out of the shed, turned left, and went down the hill. As I looked back, I saw a couple of men running down the hill after us. I never stopped.

  The Baragwanath Hospital was on the north edge of Soweto. The lady was right about that. I hoped she was wrong about the wait. It wasn’t as hard to find as I thought it would be. There were signs and sirens. I followed both. The closer we drew, the more ambulances I saw. The sirens made me think of a city under attack, like London, England, in the Second World War. I didn’t realize just how true this was, though it was a very different kind of war.

  The hospital wasn’t just one building; it was a maze of buildings. It was terribly confusing, but I followed the signs for Emergency, and they eventually took us there. What I saw gave me a terrible feeling that she had been right about the wait, too. Ambulances were unloading people onto the ground! This was because all of the stretchers were occupied. Horribly wounded people were lying on the ground outside, waiting for hours before even being taken inside. A small number of medical staff was going a
round, checking on them, trying to see who needed attention most desperately. From what I could see, they all did. So many people were cut, shot, burnt, or had smashed limbs and faces. It was the most horrible thing I had ever seen. At least one person appeared to be already dead. Still, no one could go inside the hospital. It was simply too busy.

  I had to find help for Los. I climbed the curb with the bike, squeezed very slowly between people, many of whom were furious at me, and got close enough to a nurse to speak to her. “My friend has been beaten very badly. He is unconscious. Can you help us?”

  She turned, raised her head, and glanced into the sidecar at Los. “Is he breathing on his own?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he can wait. Take your turn in line.” She pointed to the people lying on the ground.

  “But he might be bleeding inside. What if he dies?”

  She was so busy, she didn’t have time for my questions. “Do you see all these people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most of them are bleeding inside. Take your place in line.” She turned away.

  I called after her. “How long will it be?”

  She shook her head and answered without looking back. “Ten hours. Fifteen . . .”

  I looked around. “Is there another hospital?”

  A man sitting on the ground, with a bloody towel wrapped around his head, answered me. “No. They’re all closed till morning. This is the only one.”

  I looked in every direction. Everywhere were people with terrible gashes, holes, and burns on their skin. It was a nightmare. I knew what I had to do now. I reached down and checked Los’ breathing. He was still alive. I felt his pulse. It was slow. He had cuts on his face and head but wasn’t bleeding as much as many of these other people. But he was very badly bruised. I doubted he could have opened his eyes even if he wanted to. I reached for the map, opened it, studied it, and put it away. I shifted Los’ position to make him as stable as I possibly could. Then I turned the bike around, twisted our way through the wounded crowd, got back on the road, and headed south.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  WE RODE THROUGH the night. The bike’s headlight wasn’t terribly strong, but the stars and moon helped light up the road. The road was empty otherwise. I stopped every half hour to check Los. He seemed the same, except that his face and hands had swollen. His whole body must have been swollen. Why had he taken such a risk? Would I have taken that risk to see my own sister? I thought it through. Yes, I probably would have.

  His bleeding seemed to have stopped, at least the bleeding that I could see. But during one stop, I couldn’t find his pulse, and I panicked for a second until I found it. It seemed weaker. I wasn’t sure. I would never have done this—taken him away from the hospital—if there had been any other way. The thought that he might die occurred to me. But what else could I do? He might have died outside the hospital. At least this way, I felt confident he would get medical attention in about five hours, instead of twelve. He moaned a few times, which I took as a good sign. Maybe he wasn’t completely unconscious. But he must have been in horrible pain. I rode as fast as I dared, trying to keep the wobble from shaking the bike too much. I had to get us there without the bike breaking down.

  Well, nothing broke, but two thirds of the way to Ladysmith, in the middle of nowhere, the engine sputtered a few times, coughed, and died. We rolled to a stop. “No!” I couldn’t believe it. We had run out of gas. We filled the tank before we left Ladysmith, but I never thought to refill it before leaving Johannesburg. I was so used to running an engine with a tank that could cross an ocean. What now?

  I looked behind us. We hadn’t seen a town for a long time. Chances were we’d see one sooner the way we were going. There was nothing else to do but push the bike. And so I did. Thank heavens the road was flat. Within half a mile, I saw a light ahead. A mile beyond that, we came to a crossroads with an old garage and a few shacks. There was one light hanging from a pole. The garage was closed and no one was around. There was a gas pump, but it was locked. There was a truck in the yard that looked like it belonged to the government.

  I went to all the shacks and banged on the doors. No one answered. I tried to pull the hose free from the pump, but the lock was three-quarter-inch steel. There was no way on earth I could break it. I had to get fuel. What could I do? What would Ziegfried do, I asked myself. Ziegfried would slow down and look at the problem logically, and solve it logically. Okay, I thought, I will do that. I stood and considered. There was gas in the pump and gas in the truck. I couldn’t get into the pump. What about the truck?

  I twisted off the fuel cap and took a sniff. Yes, there was definitely fuel in the truck. But I needed a hose. I ran around the yard looking, but couldn’t find one. Then, I opened the hood of the truck. There were two long hoses that carried the wiper wash fluid from the tank to the window. I ripped them out, squeezed one end inside the other, and tied it tight with a wire I ripped free from the engine. Then, I sucked air through the hose to see if it would work. It did. So, I pulled the bike over to the truck, slipped one end of the hose into the fuel tank of the truck, put the other end into my mouth, and sucked as hard as I could.

  It was really difficult, and the fumes made me sick. I had never siphoned gas before, only water. Each time that I had to stop, so that I wouldn’t throw up, I pinched the hose, so that the fuel wouldn’t fall back into the tank. Eventually, I sucked enough fuel into the hose that, when I turned it down into the tank of the bike, the gas flowed on its own current. It was only a trickle, but it didn’t stop. And we had to make it only as far as Ladysmith.

  As the fuel slowly ran into the motorbike’s tank, I raised my head and looked around. This was theft. It would be terrible if I got caught. I had also sabotaged the truck. These were criminal acts. But what else could I do? I couldn’t let Los lie around for twelve hours without medical attention, and I couldn’t sit here and wait for the gas station to open. We were desperate. Desperation breeds violence, Los had said. Well, maybe sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. This wasn’t violence. If anything, it was the opposite. Maybe sometimes you have to do something wrong to do something right. Los would have done the same thing for me. So would Ziegfried. So would my grandfather.

  Just as the first shade of blue appeared in the sky, we reached the emergency wing of the hospital in Ladysmith. There was no one outside. There were no patients in the waiting room. There were no sirens or ambulances. It was quiet and still. The nurses on the night shift came outside with me, took one look at Los, and ran for a stretcher. After they took him away, they asked me to stay around and fill out papers. So I did. But as soon as I sat down and stared at the paper, I felt a terrible headache. I had just been through the most stressful day and night of my life. I was also dehydrated. My hand was so shaky I could barely hold the pen.

  A few hours later, I rolled down the street where Katharina lived. She was standing on her porch when I pulled up in front of the house. She must have heard the bike coming. She had one arm wrapped around her belly and one hand on her face. She saw the blood on my clothes when I stepped from the bike. I suddenly felt exhausted when I saw her. Until now, I hadn’t noticed how tired I was. It seemed to hit me all at once. Katharina looked strong standing there, bracing herself for whatever I had to tell her. “Is he alive?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She came towards me and hugged me. I had to fight back my tears. Whenever would I learn not to cry, I wondered? Maybe never. Who cares?

  “Will he be all right?” she asked hopefully.

  “They don’t know yet. He has a bad concussion. He has a lot of broken bones. It will take a long time to heal.”

  “But he will heal.” She sounded determined.

  I nodded. “Yes, he will heal.”

  “Is he here? In Ladysmith?” She sounded surprised.

  “I had to bring him to the hospital here. I had no choice. We would still be waiting if we had stayed in Soweto.”

  Kat
harina shut her eyes. “You did right, Alfred. You did right. You must be tired now.”

  “I am.”

  “Come in. Get some sleep. I will go to the hospital. There is food in the kitchen. Please eat something.”

  “Thank you. Katharina?”

  “Yes?”

  “Los didn’t go for the tools. He went for his sister.”

  “I know.”

  “But he didn’t find her.”

  Katharina jumped into her car in her bare feet. “She was forbidden to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “To punish him.” She waved, and drove away. I went inside the house. There were cantaloupe, oranges, and strawberries on a plate. I picked up the plate and went into the backyard. Hollie, Seaweed, and Little Laura were there. I was so glad to see them. I sat down and shared the fruit with them. The older I got, and the more I learned about people, the more I realized that animals were better than people in many ways. I patted Hollie and looked into his sweet eyes. If every living creature had a heart like his, the world would be a happier place.

  After half an hour, I put Hollie and Little Laura into the house, went into the barn, lay down on the sleeping bag, and fell asleep. I was dead to the world in seconds.

  It was dark when I woke. Katharina was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea when I came inside the house. Hollie greeted me at the door. I was very surprised to see Little Laura sitting on Katharina’s shoulder. She had never sat on my shoulder. She had never even come to my hand. I thought maybe she was afraid I might pull her under water again. I supposed she had good reason not to trust men. “She likes you.”

  “I dreamt about her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. There was a woman on a boat, and she was calling out to me. Was there a woman in Little Laura’s life?”

  “Yes, I think so. I think her name was Maggie.”