Cruel Crazy Beautiful World

by Troy Blacklaws

  – Sounds romantic. A taboo love between Muslim and Jew.

  – Their love faded out long ago. If not for me, there’d be no proof of it.

  – Tricky for your folks, I imagine ... under apartheid.

  – I was born in Amsterdam. If they’d stayed in South Africa they’d have been jailed. After Mandela got out it was no longer taboo.

  – He’s a god, hey?

  – Mandela? Ja. A god.

  – So, who do you bow to? Allah or Jehovah?

  – Neither. I never found God in temple or synagogue.

  Maybe God hides in the static between radio stations, in gaps between frames in film, in gullies between panels in comics, in silences between lines of a play. Or maybe God’s found in the metamorphosis of things: the forming of a pearl around a speck of sand, the sea-honing of a sharp shard of beer glass into something smooth-rimmed and beautiful, in the journey of pressed grapes to wine, the paring down of a squid to the cuttlebone.

  Zero Cupido never went to the temple again after he ran away from his folks at fourteen. To him the call of the muezzin is now just a distant mosquito whine in the soundtrack of a Cape dusk, along with the cries of newspaper boys and the crooning of pigeons.

  I dimly recall an outing with my mother to a synagogue in a distant town (beyond the range of her shame). I sat-and-stood, sat-and-stood among men who murmured cricket scores, fiscal figures and horse tips while the rabbi intoned monotonously. I saw a fly wing into the gaping mouth of a snoring old man and I giggled until my mother scowled at me from the shadows.

  – I lost my faith in God ... long ago, Hunter sighs.

  I sense that the thing that wiped out her faith is too deep and raw to reveal offhandedly.

  At that moment the hobo’s dog stalks a chip packet scudding across the cobbles. He traps it underfoot and licks the salt off.

  – How does he survive, that dog?

  – That dog? Moonfleet? Folk drop scraps as they go by.

  – Moonfleet. Far out. Hey, by the way, do you have an amber with a spider caught in it?

  – I have ants trapped in amber.

  She rummages in a printer’s tray, then puts a honey-yellow stone in my hands.

  I hold it up to the sun. I squint at the filament of an ant fossil.

  – How much is it?

  – It’s for a girl, isn’t it?

  I feel my cheeks colour at being caught out.

  – Your girlfriend?

  – No. Just a girl. I don’t know her name yet.

  – Just a girl? I see. I tell you what. I’ll trade this for that turquoise whale. It’ll perk up my old caravan no end. It’ll pick up the colour of my everlastings.

  I picture Hunter’s lonely life in a caravan shared with mute stones and tacky dry flowers.

  8

  A FARM SOMEWHERE SOUTH of the Limpopo.

  Two Dobermann dogs come walloping and hollering out of a zinc-roofed farmhouse. Claws scuttling over stones, tails whipping wildly.

  A peacock flies up into a giant bluegum, calling kaaaaow, kaaaaow.

  The gunmen yell at the dogs.

  The cowed dogs sniff at Jabulani’s feet.

  Behind the farmhouse is a long row of barns, like marooned boxcars on a desert siding.

  Followed by yapping dogs, the gunmen frogmarch Jabulani past a fenced-in pond where crocodiles V their jaws to stay cool. They blind-eye white chickens dangling dead from a wire.

  – Ever since they taste Zimbos they gone off chicken, jokes the one with a scar slanting south-east from his left eye.

  His sidekick laughs.

  A door slides on rails. Jabulani is flung to the sawdust-covered floor. He hears the wounded call of the peacock over the yapping of the dogs. He smells smoke and the snuff of dry tobacco. As his eyes focus in the slats of slanting light, he sees he’s not alone. An old black man is stirring a smoking pot of pap cooking over a fire drum. The furrowed vellum of his forehead is caught in a shaft of dust-dancing sun.

  Jabulani imagines he’ll see tobacco hanging bat-like overhead. Instead, a bare beam runs from one end of the barn to the other. Steel bunk beds line the walls. Grey jail blankets with footnote white lines are folded into squares.

  An old, sagging-skinned bloodhound lifts raw eyes out of a concertinaed jowl to peer at the stranger.

  – Where am I?

  – This is hell. You’ll wish you never crossed over.

  – Hell?

  – We’re slaves, man. You, me ... the others out on the lands.

  – Others?

  – The other fugitives they caught.

  – But they can’t just round up men like cattle.

  – When they have the guns they can do what they want. There’s no higher law out here.

  The old dog farts, as if to underscore his words.

  The old man spoons some pap into an enamel bowl and hands it to Jabulani.

  – I am too old to dig holes, so I cook.

  Jabulani forms the pap into a ball in his fist and wolfs it down.

  – It’s good.

  The old man nods. He scoops water from a deep drum into an enamel yellow mug from a long row of such mugs hanging on nails. This too he hands to Jabulani.

  Jabulani swigs the cool, sweet water in gasping gulps, washing the pap down.

  – Your dog is old, notes Jabulani.

  – They wanted to shoot him. Half his teeth have gone. They taught him to hunt down fugitives. To hunt you and me.

  The old man offers his hand to the dog and laughs as the dog licks it.

  – Some hunter, hey?

  Jabulani laughs. It feels good to laugh after the river and the dogs and the gunmen.

  – You too will be sent to dig holes this afternoon.

  – Holes?

  – For the poles for the camo shade cloth they span over the marijuana. So you can’t see it from the sky and so the marijuana does not die.

  – They farm marijuana?

  – Now you farm marijuana. They will put you in a crew called Polemen. The Polemen are the rebels and newcomers ... the ones who cannot hide the fire in their eyes. They stay Polemen till their heads hang, until their spines hook and their feet drag. Then they become zombies. We call the zombies Shadowmen. They have given up all hope of escape. They travel in a truck to the Limpopo before sunup and fill drums with water for the marijuana. They spend the day in the shadows of the shade cloths. They plant the young marijuana four feet apart and water it just a bit each day. Not too much, otherwise the roots rot. And they pick the tops to dry out for ganja.

  – How long have you been on this farm?

  – Two and a half years. My wife has heard no word from me since I came to South Africa. I was a baker in Harare.

  – Is there no way to escape? To send word out to the world?

  – They who run get shot down like old dogs. The vultures pick their bones. I once sent word on a paper tied to the foot of a pigeon that landed on this barn. He had lost his bearings for a time. He had a ringed foot, so chances are good my paper was read somewhere. The catch is, whoever read it would think the words were the scribblings of a madman. Besides, I cannot map out where we are. There are no landmarks in this dry borderland.

  Jabulani gauges from the distance he ran and the pickup ride that they must be about a marathon’s distance from the border.

  The old man puts out his empty hand.

  – I am Jonas.

  – I am Jabulani.

  They shake, palm to palm, then swivel their hands to hook their thumbs.

  9

  HERMANUS MARKET.

  Vans have unloaded their cargo. Cardboard boxes have spilt their wares. I have put out my beaded animals.

  The market is a jamboree of colours: Kenyan cotton sarongs called kikois, bolts of Indian cloth, Chinese silks, pyramids of mangos and oranges, yellow and red peppers, and golden bananas.

  The market echoes with the rapping of the Tanzanians hawking their wood carvings, the muttering of a faux Zulu shaman
fogging magic muti (a mix of beetroot, garlic and honey) to cure you of The Virus and still another hex in a vial to spook snakes away, the keening of a Moroccan snake-charmer’s flute, the dry-bone music of marimba men from Malawi and the haunting howl of the whale crier’s kelp horn.

  Instead of riding listing, laden boats to Spain or Italy, young Africans with a fiery dream may head south, leaving behind them countries where a leopard-hatted ruler fattens his gut on overseas funds. They spend all their money on rides under tarps in trucks, in the holds of cargo boats. Or they walk for miles and miles, crossing borders, dodging the men and animals that prey on them under a vulture-zoned sky. By hook or by crook they find their way south to Cape Town, the London of Africa. And further south still to this marketplace.

  A villagey, matey vibe pervades the market. Traders whistle or wave across the square; they shake hands and linger.

  Now locals and holidaymakers drift into the square. You can tell them apart. The locals have sun-jaded, wind-scratched skin and a lazy lilt to their walk. They have lost their stiffness. The slick holidaymakers from Johannesburg up north tend to have an upbeat skip to their walk. They strive to look chilled in their Billabong gear and flip-flops, but they stay tuned to their cellphones in case a deal eludes them. The pale-skinned holidaymakers from overseas stand out like folk from another planet with their muted joy, Crumpler bags and colourful Crocs.

  A coloured fruit seller pitches his high call over this jumble of voices. Liii-tchiii. Liii-tchiii.

  Seeing me tuned in, he lobs a red ball to me across the square. I dart to catch it.

  The spiky skin stings my palm. I pop the reptilian peel between my teeth and suck the slick sweet off the stone.

  – Who’s stall’s this?! a bass voice booms.

  I spin to see a fat ass forming big bongos in front of my stall.

  The video-toting tourist in hard-core hiking boots flips over the bead animals as if to find some flaw in the handiwork. She spurns them one by one: topples a giraffe, tips a turtle’s feet up, tangles gecko tails.

  – How much?

  I hope to stay calm as I put the animals on their feet again.

  – Depends. Was there one you had in mind?

  She picks up a penguin.

  – How much for this here bird? she twangs.

  – That penguin’s a hundred rand.

  – One hundred? I’ll give you half.

  She plonks the penguin down and manhandles a gecko instead. So far I’ve traded a whale for a stone and now a woman wants a penguin at cost. I have nada to hand over to Zero, never mind profit to pocket. I ought to heed Zero’s Survival Tip #2 and haggle to and fro, but her gung-ho air kills this tango.

  – I’m sorry. That’s what I want for it.

  – You just lost money, boy.

  She drops the gecko and shunts on to Hunter’s cowries.

  – You walk on by, shoots Hunter. I have fuckall to sell to you.

  The woman stomps off, lugging binoculars and bazooka-lensed camera.

  Hunter laughs and I echo her as I fix the penguin’s bent feet.

  Hunter and me in cahoots. An old white woman with dry, gooseberry-husk skin and a lovesick coloured boy. A killer duo.

  A whisper of paper swirls over the hard fabric of the world.

  I can smell low-tide kelp on the cool harbour wind.

  I realise I haven’t seen the stray market dogs all day.

  10

  A FARM SOMEWHERE SOUTH of the Limpopo. Noon.

  Panganai and Tendai tug tufts of candyfloss from pink clouds as the Chinese girl in a pink tutu rides a circus horse round and round.

  The frenzied jabber of the dogs and the rumble of a diesel pickup haul Jabulani out of reverie.

  He smells the pap Jonas has cooked in the dusty, dour light.

  A yelled command is a high note over the deep-river tones of men singing in his language.

  Jabulani gears himself to see a gang of hardened, jaded old men.

  The barn door slides open and the men plod in. They give off a gamey reek of smoke and sweat.

  Sidestepping the stranger, they scoop water out of the drum with enamel mugs. They drink half and tip half over their heads. The curing cool of the water draws smiles from a few of the men.

  Jonas shyly shuffles his feet. The men are younger and jauntier than he had imagined. They must be Polemen.

  – Boys, this is Jabulani, says Jonas. He is a teacher.

  The way they nod their sodden heads at him reveals deep awe of teachers. They all, not so long ago, sat at the feet of a teacher with a slate and chalk in hand, keen to learn about the world beyond the Limpopo.

  Jabulani hops on to an old army troop truck with the Polemen.

  The Polemen murmur their feeling of injustice as they go by the Shadowmen behind barbed wire. They have it good. They stay under the shade cloths. They are not stung by the sun. They are not hounded by the gunmen.

  The marijuana the forlorn Shadowmen tend to under the shade cloths is absurdly green. A fizzing, green-mamba green. The plants dance as innocently as lotus or palm in the dry wind.

  When the army truck halts on a dusty unwired space, they carry the poles from the back of the truck to put in the holes.

  One of the men shinnies up a pole, hammer in his back pocket and nails in his mouth like some fanged demon gecko. They tie the shade cloth to a rope and he hauls it up and over the crossbeam. Once this is spun taut as trampoline skin he hammers it down.

  Jabulani’s job, just as Jonas forecast, is to dig holes with a pick.

  All picks fall in sync. Men sing to the rhythm of the falling picks as red dust smokes skywards. If a man stands to rub his sore spine, a gunman barks at him to get on with the job.

  A haggard, wiry man floating long, white, jute-like hair from under a cowboy hat rides a volatile horse to and fro.

  He reminds Jabulani of old Willie Nelson: spiny white stubble, buzzardy eyes. He fleetingly recalls cold amber beers in a student dive in Harare, tuned into Nelson and Dylan.

  Scarface and Sidekick dangle their army boots from the bonnet of the Land Rover.

  Another two gunmen stand smoking in the shade of the troop truck.

  Jabulani surveys the barren land around him. No chance of running without being gunned down.

  A whip cracks. Jabulani jumps.

  – Hey! This is not the beach. Dig or you’ll feel the bite of my mamba.

  The cowboy snarls his teeth into a gleeful sneer at the sight of the tenderfoot swinging his pick with gusto.

  – That albino’s the devil, a Poleman whispers to Jabulani. We call him Ghost Cowboy.

  11

  HERMANUS MARKET. AFTERNOON.

  I catch sight of the seagull girl feeling and smelling oranges. My scalp tingles. My heart beats a snare-drum riff.

  The fruit seller drops his chant to gawp at her. He skins a litchi with otter fingers and hands her the white ball.

  From this angle I can’t see her put it in her mouth.

  He holds out a hand, palm up, for the stone.

  I abandon my stall to see.

  She bows to spit the stone into his hand.

  He pockets it. Then he peels an orange and gives her a quarter.

  I imagine juice seeping from her lips, for she wipes her chin with the heel of her hand. She nods at him.

  He is over the moon. Winking theatrically, he fingers oranges as if fondling breasts. Cocky swine.

  She laughs at his antics and signals she’ll have half a dozen. A hand and a thumb.

  He twists the paper bag as he hands it to her.

  She drifts from stand to stand. Now she frivolously puts a sun hat on her head and tilts her head to see herself in a mirror. Now she stands to look at a guy in dangling dreads lazily juggling sticks. They are the things they call devil sticks, bound in rubber from bicycle tyres. Her eyes shake the dreadlock dude out of his torpid daze and now he makes his sticks sky-dance. She laughs at his dreads writhing like spiked snakes.

  I pi
ck up my guitar and sing Dylan in a bid to lure her away from him.

  She heads my way, swinging her paper bag of oranges.

  My heart beats hard.

  Behind her, the jilted dreadlock dude catches his sticks and skims his hand off his ass at me for cutting in on his act.

  Now the seagull girl stands in front of me. Her toenails are painted blue.

  My voice drops out of key. I glance at Hunter, who reads all in a moment and frowns at me to focus.

  – You play beautifully.

  The girl’s voice is limpid as the sound of a penny whistle, fresh as lemongrass, sweet as acacia honey.

  I lay down my guitar. The uncut strings beyond the keys quiver like moth feelers.

  She lets her fingers fondle the wire-and-bead animals. Each animal pulses to life under her fingertips. A penguin wags its stubby tail. A chameleon unfurls its fizzy tongue. A turtle tilts its head. She lifts a seahorse to the sky. Sunlight glints in the beads. The spine fin blurs like a hummingbird’s wings. And as her fingers glide on, the animals freeze again.

  I no longer see them as mere trinkets to hawk for Zero but as things with soul.

  – How much do you want for this seahorse?

  No words flow from my lips.

  – They go for a hundred, Hunter pipes up. But maybe you could deal him down just a tad.

  I scowl at Hunter.

  – You can have him, I tell the seagull girl.

  – That’s sweet. But a hundred’s a song for something so magical.

  Before handing me the note, she folds it twice over, as if to render the deal less mercenary. Or as if to hand me a pencilled note.

  As she goes past the fig tree, she drops an orange in the hobo’s hands and bends to pat his dog.

  I am dazed beyond all cure.

  – You can’t just give your wares away, Hunter scolds me.

  – Isn’t she a goddess?

  – See her float, Hunter mocks. Catch her before she kites off.

  Then her voice goes all minor key:

  – I was beautiful once.

  My eyes slide away.

  I see a young black man running across the market square as if the devil is after him. He trips and falls hard at the feet of the seagull girl. His mouth gapes, as if to tell her something. Maybe to beg her to pluck out the knife sticking into his spine. Instead, he spits blood on her sandalled feet.