Zebra Crossing

by Meg Vandermerwe

  ‘You know those young men who always look like they are going to a wedding? The ones from DRC?’

  ‘David says they refuse to dress like poor men.’

  ‘True. Back in Congo they are called sapeurs. Know why?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘They are men who worship the cloth. And I don’t mean the holy cloth. For them the fashion cloth is what’s holy. Am I making sense?’

  He isn’t making much sense to me. But I have learnt that when he chatters this way, not giving me a moment to speak, that the best thing to do is smile and nod. Jean-Paul continues.

  ‘What you wear affects how you feel. You may be a poor man, but when you dress like a rich one, like a successful one, it changes everything. It gives you room to dream. To hope.’

  ‘So how do you do this?’ I ask Jean-Paul.

  ‘I can read something of their soul. For example, a woman comes here. She is working for a white lady, cleaning her house. But she dreams of being a nurse. I help to make her look like a nurse, meaning a professional who is respected. So at least on Sundays at church, she is closer to her dream. She looks in the mirror and that is what she sees.’

  Working for Jean-Paul has made me more conscious of what I wear, too. Every day I make sure my blouse is clean and pressed. As I look in the mirror that night, I wonder to myself, what would the wife of David look like? She would look respectable. Would she be fashionable? I look in the mirror and stare hard. Examine. Imagine. She would not be a tin of condensed milk like me. She would have beautiful dark skin. She would definitely have long dark hair, too. There is nothing you can do to change your skin, Chipo, I tell my reflection that night, but you can try to do something about this hair of yours.

  I am thirteen. I am watching young lovers. I know they are lovers because they look into each other’s eyes and speak with their faces so close that their words pass into each other’s mouths. That is the way Mama and Stanley used to look at each other. The tongues. I cannot look away. The smiling woman pushes her nose into her lover’s neck. He pulls her closer.

  That night I go home and beneath the bedcovers I run my hands over my adolescent breasts. Immediately my nipples harden. My lover is above me. Dark. Handsome. He is leaning over me. He is pushing his tongue inside my mouth. He is speaking his words into me the way Mama says God once breathed his voice into clay to make human flesh.

  I have heard that there is a hairdresser in the Pan African Market on Long Street who specialises in African weaves and styles. So I go there the next morning, as soon as I think it might be open.

  The Pan African Market is a collection of different shops selling African curios and carvings to tourists. But there are also Africans offering services. As I make my way through the rooms with their walls painted bright red, blue and yellow, out of the shadows step handsome black men, with smiles like slices of sweet melon when they think they can smell foreign currency. Most ignore me when they see that I am not a real white.

  ‘Africa hairdresser’s is on the third floor. Last room,’ a man making baskets from colourful plastic beads and wire coat hangers tells me, when I ask.

  When I reach the room, I find that it is empty except for three large women and one white tourist.

  The women are not South African. They are not Zimbabwean. They cluck their tongues and chatter among themselves as the white woman listens to her headphones and flicks through a guidebook with pictures of lions and elephants on the cover.

  One woman approaches me: ‘Yes, sister?’

  ‘I want what she is having.’ I point to a photo from a magazine on the wall of a black woman with beautiful dark braids.

  She shakes her head and points to the blonde tourist, whose hair is being plaited.

  ‘No, I want black hair. Like an African.’

  The woman shrugs and says something to the two women doing the plaiting. Both laugh. Then she offers me a seat.

  ‘Nearly finish. Please wait.’

  Having braids put in takes a long time. Hours. Almost as long as waiting at Home Affairs. After six hours of the two women working feverishly on my head, my scalp feels pinched and bruised, but I am ready. I pay the money that I have begged Jean-Paul to lend me and go.

  As I walk up Long Street I catch my reflection and I know that I glow. This is closer to what David’s bride would look like. Of that I am certain. My heart thumps with pride. And if I look like it, am I not one step closer? Isn’t that what Jean-Paul says?

  ‘Chipo, you look so beautiful!’

  ‘Oh, David, you think so? I just thought, you know, a change.’

  ‘But, Chipo, I cannot take my eyes off you. Would you like to go…’

  Where would we go? Where would David take his future bride? Not to the Joburg Bar, that’s for certain. Not to that greasy-looking café either, I think, as I pass it. Somewhere… grander. The Waterfront. Yes, somewhere at the Waterfront mall. Isn’t that where the wealthy go? I can see David and me sitting at a table overlooking the ocean. At our feet are parcels and bags – purchases he has made for me. I sip my cappuccino. He leans forward and, looking into my eyes, takes my hand. We do not need to speak. We have that quality lovers have, who know from a gesture, from a smile, what the other one is thinking.

  My body is trembling with excitement as I turn the key in the door. If I were on television, the theme music would start now.

  The radio is on. Thumping American hip-hop. The sort that makes the glasses drying next to the sink rattle. So, George is home.

  ‘Tortoise?’

  ‘Yes, George.’

  ‘Where have you been, hey?’ he asks, without turning around to look at me.

  ‘Out,’ I say. I put down my bag. ‘George?’ I cannot wait to hear what he says. Chipo. Not Tortoise. Not Little Sister. Chipo.

  ‘Ha ha!’ My brother bends over with laughter. ‘Your hair. You look like a zebra! Peter, Peter, come here! Look what Chipo has done to herself.’

  ‘Shut up, George!’ I scream like a madwoman. I tear past Peter, who has stepped out of the toilet, and run to Jean-Paul’s room.

  Jean-Paul says nothing. He watches me weep on a chair for a few moments. It is true. Looking in Jean-Paul’s mirror, I see how ridiculous it looks – the bottom and roots still blonde, the braids black. Jean-Paul pushes a box of tissues in my direction. Then he hands me his tailoring scissors.

  When David gets home and George tells him the story, I have already pulled most of the braids out.

  I can see him looking at me. He is puzzled. Normally, I am the first to greet him, but I feel so foolish that I cannot look at him. Tonight I want him to ignore me until I am back to my old self.

  ‘Chipo, tell David what you did today.’

  I ignore George and continue to comb out my hair.

  David shrugs and sits down. Thankfully, George doesn’t pursue it. He has another bone to pick.

  ‘I don’t know how you can stay at Jeremiah’s place. I hate Wynberg Main Road. All those Congolese everywhere, eating their horrible stinking dried fish.’

  David raises his eyebrows at George as he spoons some mealie porridge into his bowl.

  ‘What, David? I just don’t like how they present themselves as African Rambos, OK? Why must they always be security? I tell you what, they think they are still commandos and we must be waiters. I could beat the shit out of any Congolese, no problem.’

  ‘Sure, George.’ David catches my eye and winks. ‘Chipo, what are your plans tonight?’ he asks.

  ‘I am helping Jean-Paul. I am ironing his alterations.’ All the braids are out now. I brush my hair down.

  ‘Could you wash my green shirt?’

  ‘Of course, David.’

  ‘Excellent. I want to wear it tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you going out again?’ I can’t disguise my disappointment.

  David nods. ‘Yes. Jeremiah says there’s a free lunchtime talk on at the university. Oh, damn, I’m going to be late for the restaurant. Mr Ross will rant. Try to stay out of tr
ouble, Rambo. See you later, Chipo.’

  When David is gone, my brother turns back to me. ‘So Chipo’s favourite is out again tomorrow night with Choirboy. Shame.’

  Ten

  They say that it is when your bread is buttered that you must hold onto it the tightest, because that is when life comes to snatch it away. That is what happened to Mama with Old Trafford.

  After four months in Cape Town, we are full of hope. New Year came and went. Yes, we have survived so far, we tell ourselves. George and I have regular jobs. We can keep our heads above water when it comes to buying food and life’s necessities. We can meet the rent.

  By February, George decides we can even afford a second-hand television. On the day it arrives, David and Peter, but also several of the Zimbabwean waiters with whom George and David work, including Jeremiah, come to admire this new luxury.

  ‘Almost a flatscreen,’ announces George proudly, as he adjusts the bent antenna in an attempt to correct the snowy picture. He has bought it from a group of Nigerians downstairs. They are letting him pay it off at one hundred ZARs a month and have included a VCR on loan and some Nollywood films for free.

  Nollywood sounds like Hollywood, but it is nothing like Hollywood. Still, these Nigerian films, with their gory shoot-outs, zombie possessions and witch-doctor curses become firm favourites with my brother and his friends, along with the WWE Raw, Isidingo, a show about wealthy black and white South Africans, and of course all the soccer fixtures.

  ‘You see, Jeremiah,’ says George one evening as they watch a copy of Joseph’s Twins, about one twin who was in league with the Devil, ‘such films are more than entertainment. Granted, it is not like a game of chess. But we who did not go to university must be satisfied.’

  Jeremiah shrugs and says nothing. He snaps a peanut from its shell and offers one to David. They do not care much for the new television, except if the soccer is on. Instead they are hunched over Jeremiah’s chessboard, which sits on an old bottle crate.

  My brother turns up the volume.

  David stares hard at the pieces on the chessboard in front of him. Jeremiah is teaching him how to play, but he has yet to master the game and still makes lots of careless mistakes.

  ‘No, David.’ Jeremiah shakes his head. He has told David before: if you lift a piece from the board, place it elsewhere and lift your hand, you cannot change your mind. That is ‘chess etiquette’.

  Jeremiah is very concerned with etiquette. He does not like it when George swears and farts. He shakes his head and clicks his tongue whenever someone takes the Lord’s name in vain.

  Embarrassed, David smiles and apologises. He puts the piece back.

  ‘You will get the hang of it,’ Jeremiah tells him. ‘Practice and discipline. Those are the secrets.’ Jeremiah picks up a chess piece and moves it forwards. ‘Now watch out, my friend, you have left your queen unprotected.’

  Yes, slowly slowly, we seem to be succeeding. But our new home still holds some surprises for us. It starts with a phone call at the end of February that scoops me out of sleep like a fisherman’s net. I open my eyes. My cellphone, a gift from Jean-Paul, is glowing, ghostly and impatient. I swallow. I had been having another nightmare. Not Mama. This time the magumaguma gangs along the border. They had knives ready to cut out my organs for muti. I breathe in, out. Wait for my racing heart to slow. You are safe, Chipo. Safe safe safe. Still groggy, I reach for the phone.

  ‘George?’

  ‘No, it’s David. Listen, Chipo, I haven’t got much airtime. We are at the police station. George has been arrested.’

  Arrested? I repeat the word.

  ‘Arrested?’ My mouth is dry.

  ‘Don’t worry. He is fine. They are going to release him. We will be home as soon as we can. I just thought you should know…’

  Other voices.

  ‘Sorry, Chipo, I have to go.’

  Fear is a sharp word. It makes your tongue bleed. Anger is sour and fiery. Like acid indigestion. Hatred. Hatred is a word that gets stuck in your throat. Xenophobia. Xenophobia is a long word. Complicated, arrogant. It thinks it is smarter than other words. It is a bully. Anxiety is a terrible word. It is the ground turning to quicksand beneath you.

  When I look back on it now, from here, I can see that there were warning signs of the troubles to come. Our treatment at Home Affairs. That afternoon in December when David came back, furious because a Xhosa-speaking saleslady had refused to speak English to him when he asked for help at a department store in Adderley Street.

  ‘I reported her to the manager, as if he will do anything.’

  And then there were the unfriendly comments from the Xhosa locals.

  ‘Hey, makwerekwere! Go back to your own country!’

  ‘Hey, we know you are only here to take our jobs and money.’

  And of course before. I am talking about the smoke of May 2008. From here I can still see it, although most people cannot. It is a stain that cannot be washed out. That smoke spread like blood over the houses of those foreigners burned out of the townships by their African brothers and sisters who bared their teeth and raised their pangas, chanting, ‘Go home or die here!’

  Refugees rhymes with fleas. And fleas must have their heads squeezed off.

  And yes, word reached us back in Zimbabwe. Sixty killed. One hundred thousand displaced. One Zimbabwean man in Joburg was burnt alive. Petrol poured on his body and matches thrown until he ran and rolled himself on the ground like a fallen star. Criminal elements, not locals, is what the South African newspapers said. Our government newspapers back home paraded the stories, as if to say: ‘So you want a better life across the border? Ha!’

  But there is a saying, that hope springs eternal. Back in Zimbabwe, before we left, George dismissed any possibility of encountering such troubles: ‘There is xenophobia everywhere. Even here. Besides, that was long ago. South Africa says they will host the World Cup on behalf of all Africa. Does that sound like a country that plans to turn on its African brothers and sisters?’

  After George’s arrest we are confused and frightened. The most upset of all is Jeremiah. He begins to tremble when George recounts the story of how he and Harmony were assaulted by a ticket inspector on a train and then arrested even though they had been the innocent party.

  ‘He attacked you because he thought she was a local girl. That you were stealing their women. You know how they all talk about us taking their South African girls.’ That is Peter’s view on the attack.

  But it isn’t the attack alone that is causing a commotion among us. It is what the ticket inspector said: ‘Just you wait. When the World Cup is finished, we will drive all you foreigners out! If you stay, you will burn!’

  ‘He was drunk,’ David soothes.

  ‘He meant it! And not one of those police bastards did a thing! They arrested us and let him go. It is just like back home, except here they do not abuse you because you are poor, but because you are poor and a foreigner. South Africa welcomes the world, my shit!’ George spits out the official catch phrase for the World Cup.

  ‘The more I am here, the more I wonder if we are not better off back home.’ This is Jeremiah.

  ‘Ha! Back home we’ll starve!’ Peter is losing his temper.

  ‘And here? Here we’ll burn!’

  Jeremiah. David looks very concerned about his friend. For a moment he looks like he might reach out and touch him, but then he seems to think better of it. Jeremiah has his reasons to worry, David says, after Jeremiah has gone. He fetches himself a Castle from the fridge, even though David usually only drinks on weekends.

  David opens the bottle and drinks deeply. I can see that he too is rattled, although he is trying his best not to show it.

  ‘Jeremiah never told you what happened to his cousin in 2008.’

  He takes another swig.

  ‘His cousin was a young man like him – strong. But one day he complained of a terrible fever and headache. It was just before all the troubles in May. Jeremiah took hi
m to the hospital near the Waterfront. But those people would not help him…’

  ‘Who?’ my brother asks, tenderly massaging Zam-Buk into his swollen jaw where the inspector punched him.

  ‘The nurses. They asked Jeremiah’s cousin for his name and family name so they could fill in their forms. When he told them the nurse replied, “But that is not a Xhosa name. You cannot be from here.” Immediately she left. And each time Jeremiah went to find her, she and her colleagues pretended to be too busy to help.

  ‘After eight hours of waiting and no help, Jeremiah and his friends brought the young man back here, and during the night he died. Jeremiah used all the money he had saved to bring his wife and daughter to South Africa, to store the body in the morgue and get him a proper burial.’

  David shakes his head and slumps down into a chair. Peter just sits stock-still. George snorts and lights a cigarette. They will both have to leave for work in an hour and have yet to get some sleep.

  Eleven

  Saturday morning. Early March. Five months since George and I arrived in Cape Town. A hundred and twenty-five days until the World Cup kick-off. None of us has been the same since the night of George’s attack. Now, waiting for the World Cup doesn’t fill us with excitement. It fills us with trepidation. It seems the threats spat at George by the ticket inspector have begun to be heard by others.

  ‘Let’s go to the internet café,’ David says. He will teach me about Google Earth.

  Together we walk to the café on the corner. It is the cheapest, set up in a corridor of a building and costing just five rand for thirty minutes. We pay our money and sit at a monitor.

  ‘It works by satellite. See, if you zoom you can see the exact spot in Beitbridge where your house is.’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Sorry, was. But still, isn’t it incredible, Chipo? Jeremiah has taught me all about it. Look, there’s our old school. And there is the tree where Peter was chased by the vice-principal for kicking a soccer ball at his head. Do you remember?’