Ruby Red

by Linzi Glass

  Father patted my bedcovers then left me to make phone calls to see what he could do for Julian and the other ANC members who had been captured.

  I thought back to the first time I met Julian. Had it only been months ago? So much had changed in my life in such a short time.

  As I lay there, the sunlight filtering ever brighter through my window, I realized that life was bitter-sweet, good and bad, perfect and imperfect all at once and that our purpose was to survive and thrive at both ends of the spectrum. Something inside me began to form, then like a leaded weight it sank, and kept sinking before settling on my ocean floor. It did not feel heavy and cumbersome. It was an indefinable force inside that made me suddenly feel secured to something larger than anything that might exist in the outside world. For the first time I felt safely anchored to myself.

  It was a good thing that this monumental shift in me took place because, had it not, I do not know how I would have survived all that followed.

  Mother and Father insisted that I go to school that day even though I was sure the school gates would carry a giant neon sign that flashed, ‘NO ENTRANCE, RUBY WINTERS! THE FIRST STUDENT EXPELLED FROM BARNARD HIGH IN TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.’

  I made my way begrudgingly through the school gates where, surprisingly, there was no flashing neon sign announcing my expulsion, but as I alighted from my bike I was immediately approached by Miss Allison, the school administrative assistant, who told me that Principal Dandridge needed to see me in his office right away.

  ‘You may remain here until the end of the term, Ruby, but I think we can both agree that you are no longer a good fit for Barnard High any more than Barnard is a good fit for you.’

  ‘I agree, sir. But I do have one request, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’ He drummed his chubby fingers on the polished wooden desk surface, clearly aggravated that I felt I had the right to anything other than a brief reprieve.

  ‘I respectfully request, sir, that Desmond Granger not be allowed to sit in close proximity to me, sir.’

  Principal Dandridge sighed and exhaled loudly through his rubbery lips. ‘Very well.’ He shook a pencil at me. ‘But I warn you, Miss Winters, this is the last favour I do for you.’

  I wanted to laugh at his choice of words. Keeping Desmond away from me was a necessity, hardly a favour.

  At lunch, I wandered through the gardens to look for Benjamin Mpatha, but he was nowhere to be found. I went to Miss Allison in the school office and asked if she knew where he was. She gave me a wilted look and asked what interest it was of mine to enquire after the school gardener.

  ‘He’s giving me horticultural advice,’ I told her. ‘I’m growing special winter vegetables for a science experiment.’

  Satisfied with my ridiculous answer she informed me that he had been given a leave of absence due to a death in the family. I smiled and nodded. A perplexed look crossed her pinched face as I walked away, but it lifted my spirits immeasurably to know that Benjamin was able to be with his daughter to grieve the death of their little Sophia together.

  Janice and Clive both looked down at their feet as I passed them in the hallway, but when I sat down in my seat in maths class there was a note with my name on it coiled inside the unused inkwell. I unrolled it quickly and held it out of sight on my lap to read.

  Ruby,

  I know you probably never want to talk to me again and that’s fine ’cause I wasn’t a good friend to you but I want you to know that I am sorry about Desmond ruining our friendship and trying to get you expelled. I hope you’ll be happier at your new school. Please call me if you ever want to go shopping in Hillbrow on a Saturday just like old times. You have my number.

  Monica

  I folded the note up neatly and put it into my satchel. I felt numb and strangely detached from her words. The phrase ‘old times’ was just that. A long, long time ago, or so it seemed. I could scarcely remember all the light-hearted, frivolous fun we used to have. It was all buried under decaying, mildewed piles of damage and disrepair. I knew it was unlikely that I would ever call her again. Desmond was not the cause of our friendship being over. It had been her decision all along.

  I spent half the day at school worrying about Julian. Was he being hurt or even tortured? Was he allowed to have visitors soon? I knew that Father was probably building a defence case to try and get him free already. But my insides hurt just thinking about him behind bars.

  I longed to be with Johann, to forget about everything just for a few hours. I wanted to feel his arms round me, holding me and making me feel safe. I counted every laborious minute until the last period ended and the school day was over. I raced home as fast as I could and quickly changed out of my school uniform into a white angora sweater and a pair of corduroy trousers. I was about to head out the door and ride to Zoo Lake to meet Johann when the gate buzzer rang.

  ‘It’s me, Johann – let me in quick!’ His voice sounded frantic through the speaker. My heart pounded as I waited in the driveway for his car to pull up. Within seconds it came to a screeching halt beside me. Johann flung the door open and sprung out. He grabbed me by both arms, a look of panic on his face.

  ‘Ruby, where is your father?’ he asked insistently.

  ‘At the office. Johann, you’re hurting me!’

  He released my arms. ‘Call him quickly!’

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘Listen!’ He practically pushed me up the front steps and I felt my heart leaping wildly like a trapeze artist on the high wire without a net. ‘My pa, he still has close ties to Die Broederbond because of my grandfather’s involvement with them. Die Broederbond, they work closely with the Special Branch, especially in matters of removing political vermin, as Pa calls them.’

  He guided me to the phone in the kitchen, his hand searing into my back like a pointed staff.

  ‘Johann, what are you saying?’

  He pulled the receiver off the wall and put it to my ear.

  ‘Call your father now! Tell him they are planning on ambushing him on his way home tonight. He will not even make it to see the inside of a jail cell!’

  ‘Johann?’

  ‘Call!’ His eyes were wild.

  I held his gaze and with trembling fingers dialled my father on his private line that only Mother and I and his underground political contacts knew.

  ‘Daddy, it’s me, Ruby.’ I could barely speak. ‘Johann needs me to tell you something…’ I took a deep breath and tried to finish the sentence but no words came out.

  Johann grabbed the phone from me.

  ‘Meneer, sir, please listen to me. Your life is in danger. I have overheard my father say on the phone last night to someone that the little English meisie that his son was dating will be minus a father soon. I called Ruby to meet with her today to tell her this but this afternoon I come home from school and my father is dead drunk on the couch and he laughs and tells me that I am a fool to have fallen in love with the daughter of a political troublemaker and that he was glad he forbid me to see her any more. He laughed even harder and then said that the boys from Die Broederbond were going to kill the “kaffir-loving lawyer” tonight before the police even have a chance to arrest him tomorrow.’

  My father must have said something to Johann because he paused for a second and shook his head.

  ‘Sir, I am here to tell you to leave. Time is running out and I fear for you. I beg you…’

  I looked around the kitchen. The antique copper pots that were strung like gleaming lanterns from above that Mother and I had hung just two summers ago. They had been a gift from a lesbian artist who had wanted to show her gratitude to Mother for allowing her to exhibit her rather sexually explicit works that no other gallery would show. Each pot was inscribed with a word that reflected how she felt about Mother. Radical. Courageous. Spirited. Beauty. Rule breaker.

  Now the rules that they broke were the weapons that could kill my father.

  ‘Thank you, sir. It has been a pleasure knowing you.’ />
  Johann handed the phone back to me then put his arm round me. I leaned against him for support.

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ I whispered.

  ‘Ruby, listen.’ He sounded calm but I could feel the tension behind his words. ‘Pack as much as you can, but not too much.’ Father took a deep breath before continuing, ‘I had heard that they would be coming for me, but I thought I had more time.’

  ‘Mother?’ I said with mounting fear.

  ‘I’m calling her now. Start packing. I’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Okay,’ was all I could get out.

  ‘Tell Johann he must leave our house right away. Not safe. Lock all the doors and don’t let anyone in after he leaves.’ Before he hung up Father hastily added, ‘Ruby. I forgot to thank him. He may well have saved my life.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  How did I say goodbye to Johann, to my house, to my life and all that was familiar to me in just the blink of an eye? It was almost that fast. My seventeen years of life in Johannesburg, South Africa, ended just like that.

  I know I held on to Johann and we both cried and we swore that we would see each other again. We said that space and time would not alter how we felt no matter how far we were from each other or how long we were apart. I know I said a tearfully quick goodbye to Loretta on the phone and that we both thanked the stars above that we had met and had become friends so fast, as if we somehow knew that time was running out. I did not have the chance to hug Uncle D or Thandi goodbye. There simply wasn’t time. But the hardest person that I had to say goodbye to was the one I least expected to ever be separated from in my life.

  I locked the doors after Johann had left and ran on petrified legs upstairs to hastily begin packing. I did not have a moment to think about what clothes meant more to me and what hairclips and earrings I would want. I threw a pair of shoes, a scarf, two pairs of trousers, a few tops and a jacket into a small duffle bag and toiletries into a small plastic zipper one. These were all just items that mattered not one bit, essentials to clothe me and keep me clean on the road ahead. But there was one thing I knew that I would not leave behind. I needed it to be with me every step of the journey into the unknown.

  I carefully lifted the heavy frame from the wall and pried the glass off the picture with scissors. I gently removed its backing and held the painting naked and raw in my hands. The colours were even more vivid without the frame and glass casing round it and the crayon shimmered ever brighter in the little boy’s hand.

  ‘I’m taking you with me,’ I told him softly as tears spilled down my cheeks. I rolled the painting up tenderly and tied a blue ribbon round it to keep it secure. That was all I took with me when some hours later we left under cover of dark into the cold night air.

  I heard the screeching of tyres as Mother’s champagne Jaguar roared up the driveway. Father’s Citroën followed just a few seconds behind her. I watched from my bedroom window as they climbed the stairs hastily together. I ran to them as Father opened the front door. We held each other ever so tightly, our little circle of three. We stood that way for a few seconds before Mother, blotchy faced and eyes rimmed red, stepped out of the circle.

  ‘Come,’ she said softly. ‘I need to tell you both something.’

  Father and I followed her into the living room. ‘We don’t have much time, my darling Ruby, my beloved David.’ Her face searched ours back and forth. Her hands flitted from the pulse in her neck to errant wisps of hair that strayed across her cheeks.

  ‘We are such an extraordinary family, aren’t we?’ Her voice was taut with emotion. ‘And you know how much I love you both?’ Her eyes searched deep into mine and then into Father’s, who with his steady hand traced Mother’s delicate jawbone.

  ‘Yes, Annabel.’ I could almost feel his pain, filled with immeasurable love, which floated towards her.

  ‘And you both know, don’t you, that my life’s work is to help artists.’ She held Father’s fingers in hers while she reached for mine with her free hand. She closed her eyes and tilted her head backwards. ‘Dear God, give me the strength to do this.’ She lowered her head and opened her eyes, flooded with tears. ‘I’m not coming with you.’

  I felt my feet lift from the ground as she spoke.

  ‘I can’t abandon my artists when they need me the most. Kumalo, Joshua Sisweakne, Makala and now Julian. I will not walk away from all I have worked so hard to give them. Dignity, respect, walls on which to hang their beautiful works, hope, yes, above all, hope, that one day every gallery in South Africa will proudly display their art. They are as much a part of my life as you both are.’

  Father bowed his head but held on to Mother’s hand and kissed her palm over and over again. ‘I understand. I know,’ was all he said.

  Mother pulled me towards her and I burrowed myself into her tangerine scent and her soft pale skin.

  ‘Mommy!’ I cried.

  ‘Mommy!’ She held on to me and wept.

  Father went upstairs to quickly pack and make a phone call to his underground friends who would take us out of Johannesburg. Mother and I sat on the couch clinging to each other. She stroked my hair over and over again.

  ‘It is still safe for me to be here, you know that. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. It’s your father they are after. But you must go with him, Ruby. He must take you away from this country filled with hate and fear. I will come, I promise. I will follow when the time is right.’ She managed to get out between deep sobs.

  ‘Julian…’ I sniffed. ‘Will you see him, Mother, and say goodbye from me?’

  ‘I will, my darling child, I will.’ ‘How long will he be in jail for, Mother?’ ‘No one knows, but I will do everything I can to get him free.’

  She laid her cheek against mine and rocked me back and forth, just as she did when I was a little child. She sang a half-Xhosa, half-English lullaby that she would sometimes sing to put me to sleep. How could either of us ever have known that its lyrics would come to pass?

  ‘Thulatu thula, baba, thula sana, though your mommy’s gone it’s not forever.

  Rest your weary head now, baby, don’t you cry.

  When the sun goes down and it is time to sleep

  She will come to you as if in a dream.

  Thula, baba, thula sana. Thula, baba, thula sana.’

  Within a few hours Father and I sneaked out of our house and were on our way out of the city that had brought me so much love and so much pain.

  ‘Egoli.’ Father held my hand as we walked with our bags down the back lane that ran beside our house. ‘City of gold.’ Then he added sadly, ‘We shall miss you.’ It was as if he were reading my mind.

  We were picked up several blocks from Westcliff Drive by a large black man, who flashed his lights at us in a special sequence that Father had been given as ‘the sign’. The man said nothing as we climbed into the back of his nondescript van. We travelled on lumpy seats, where the spring coils bit into my flesh like angry ants. We breathed in the unpleasant aroma of stale fish and chips for many hours before stopping on the outskirts of a small mining town near Nelspruit.

  In a dimly lit shanty hut I was given a blonde wig and a scratchy petticoat-lined dress that was a size too small for me by a young militant-looking black woman. She handed Father a bag of items. He carefully taped on the black beard and moustache. Then the woman took out a razor and quickly shaved Father’s head bald. She motioned for me to stand against the peeling shanty wall and told me to smile as she snapped a Polaroid picture. I was dazed and hungry and tired but she urged me to say cheese to get the necessary photograph. While the pictures were drying she took a smiling snap of Father, who was now hardly recognizable. After a few minutes she pasted the photos into two passports and handed them to Father. We were now Mike and Veronica Seagram a father and daughter from Germiston travelling into Mozambique for a brief holiday. The woman even handed me a piece of paper that was signed by the principal of Germiston High giving me, Veronica Seagram, permission to miss a few days of
school. ‘Great bit of forgery,’ Father complimented the grim woman, who nodded her head and ushered us back into the van with a loaf of bread and a flask of hot tea. I was grateful to have something warm in my stomach and once I was done eating I put my head on Father’s shoulder and quickly fell asleep.

  I dream that Benjamin and Thandi are getting married and Sophia, carrying her sign to keep Afrikaans out of the schools, is the flower girl. With a prefect badge gleaming on my school uniform, I am the bridesmaid. I dream that Julian sits at an easel and sketches us with a purple crayon while Mother and Father dance close, their arms wrapped tightly round each other. Then Johann walks towards me and waves. ‘Girl in the window’ waves back. He pulls his oars up to come to me.

  Father shook me gently, ‘Border is up ahead, Ruby. I mean, Veronica.’

  Mozambique had, the year before, become an independent country after years of being under Portuguese rule. The new government, now under a black ruler, gave shelter to South African ANC members and supporters. Father explained this to me in hushed tones as we neared the guard gate. I could hear our mostly silent driver speak rapidly now to the uniformed guard in a foreign language, which must have been Portuguese since Father said it was still the most spoken language of the country.

  ‘Stay calm,’ Father said quickly, just as the back door of the van was thrown open by a dark-eyed man. He indicated for us to give him our papers. He glanced over them and looked closely at the pictures in the passports, then examined Father and me. He fingered the forged principal’s letter and squinted at the words on the document. I could barely breathe and I could feel Father’s leg muscles tighten on the seat beside me. Neither of us moved. After a few excruciatingly tense seconds the man nodded his head and handed Father back the papers. He made a signal to the driver that we could move through the border gates. Father put the documents back into his jacket pocket slowly then reached for my hand and squeezed it but kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. The road that would lead us to Maputo, the newly named capital. Had Father turned to look at me he would have seen the tears that fell, filled with memory of fresh summer rains, mint and lavender in the garden, winding bike rides down Westcliff Ridge, rowing on Zoo Lake. I longed for my mother’s small hand to be brushing a strand of errant hair from my eyes, I yearned to breathe in the paint fumes of the studio while Julian’s deep voice explained a particular painting to me. I ached to feel Johann’s strong arms round me and to hear Loretta’s sweet voice telling me that I was her friend, no matter what. My heart heaved just as we hit a large bump, the first of many on the badly made roads to Maputo.