Bessie Kunene was the sister-in-law of April’s hostess, I remembered. Since April’s hostess was a pastor who helped run a school for girls in a desperately poor area of Soweto, service apparently ran in the family.
“You know you must call me Mama Bessie! I’m sorry for that craziness outside. One of the girls who cooks for us, Buhle, told some friends at the high school. You see the result.”
“I just feel terrible for disrupting the children,” Maitlin said.
Mama Bessie clicked her teeth. “We’re paying no attention.”
The building seemed secure. I glanced left at an empty classroom well equipped with wooden tables and chairs for children of all ages. Bookshelves were lined with toys, books, and crafts. The walls exploded with colorful artwork, maps of Africa, and posters picturing Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama alongside Elmo and Barney.
But the room was deserted, eerily quiet. Where were the children?
There were rapid introductions to Maitlin’s entourage. Tim was an assistant to Maitlin’s agent, but they also seemed to be friends.
Mama Bessie gestured for us to follow her, grinning. “They’ve been waiting,” she said. “We’re so proud of how patient they’ve been. They want to show off for you.”
Mama Bessie led us down a long hallway with two more activity rooms—one supplied with drums and other traditional musical instruments—and a staircase that led upstairs to what I guessed was the sleeping quarters. Toward the end of the hall, the smell of food got stronger; baked chicken, bread, vegetables. My stomach growled. Lunchtime. I had forgotten to eat.
The dining room was brightly lighted, with three tables of twelve children each, all seated before plates of food with their hands in the prayer position, most of them smiling wide except some of the youngest, fussier children. At the table closest to us, the children were as young as three, and the rest were seated by age. The table on the far side of the room had mostly eight- and nine-year-olds, but two girls at one end looked as old as twelve. They were all dressed in bright white T-shirts and dark blue shorts, like school uniforms. Two female servers in the back were filling the elder children’s plates. Clanking spoons were the only sound.
After an invisible cue, the students suddenly spoke in unison: “Molo, Miss Maitlin!” they said. A three-year-old trailed the rest, and everyone laughed. Then the children sang in three-part harmony: “‘Jesus loves me, this I know . . . because the Bi-ble tells me so . . .’ ”
The room was washed in a pure brightness that had nothing to do with the sunlight.
The two older girls at the end of the table tittered to each other instead of singing, glancing my way. One of them was biracial, like a younger version of Chela, even in her rebel’s attitude. Her hair was Chela’s loosely kinked spirals. The similarities gave me goose bumps.
I glanced at Maitlin, and tears were running down her face. Same for Rachel Wentz and Pilar; Tim kept his tears in his eyes. I’ve never cried over something beautiful, but I came close. Suddenly, the answer to the question Why do celebrities adopt these children? was obvious.
Because the children need them.
Because they can.
FIVE
AFTER THE CHILDREN’S song, we applauded and cheered. Somewhere close, a baby was crying. “Thank you, Ms. Maitlin!” the children said, in near-perfect unison. “Enkosi!”
“We are so glad you could come visit with us!” Mama Bessie said.
Maitlin moved through the room, lingering at each end of each table, stroking the children’s heads, feeding them spoonfuls of vegetables and collecting colorful crafts they had made for her. Thank you for giving us a place to live! one card read, with smiling stick figures.
I guessed that Maitlin had the new facility built, and my respect for her jumped a notch. For twenty minutes, she gave them all reason to smile as they ate.
Then we went to the baby room. In the next room, there were eight babies in plastic high chairs. Two women took turns feeding the babies mashed food. The youngest baby looked only a few months old; the oldest, nearly two. A small, snowy TV played Sesame Street to catch their eyes.
The baby room was different. The sheer helplessness of children who couldn’t feed themselves was mind-boggling. One baby’s limbs were so spindly that I wondered how he didn’t break. He looked at least nine months old, but he could barely sit upright in his high chair; his bird’s neck fought to support his head. His nostrils were clotted with mucus. One of the women saw me staring, and quickly wiped it clean.
Mama Bessie named the children chair by chair, stopping at the end.
“And this,” Mama Bessie said, “is Nandi. Isn’t she a beauty?”
The girl, who looked more than a year old, was also Chela’s café con leche complexion, with intricately braided hair that showed time and care. She had full cheeks, big pink lips, and round eyes, nothing short of angelic. She was an orphan, but she’d had a much gentler passage than the boy who sat nearby.
I wasn’t surprised by the way Maitlin’s face brightened when she saw Nandi. Beauty can take you a long way in the world.
“Look at how fat she is!” Maitlin said, delighted.
“The parents are unknown, presumed dead,” Mama Bessie said. “She was abandoned.”
The child gurgled happy words in Xhosa or Zulu, holding her chubby arms out to Maitlin. Her grin outshined Table Mountain as her stubby fingers twined with the star’s.
Maitlin’s eyes misted over. It looked like love at first sight.
“Beautiful,” Maitlin whispered, lost in the baby’s eyes. “You’re mine, sweetheart.”
“God showers us with blessings.” Mama Bessie rubbed Maitlin’s shoulder.
One of the caretakers helped Maitlin unlatch the high chair, then Maitlin lifted the child into her arms, cradling her as if she were spun glass. Maitlin’s face was afire with devotion, a natural mother. She would be devastated if she couldn’t take that child home.
“Everyone . . . ,” Maitlin began, “. . . this is Nandi.”
Rachel Wentz, Pilar, and Tim crowded around Maitlin to admire little Nandi.
“Oh God, Sophie, she’s an angel!” Pilar said.
“This is definitely the little girl for you—I can feel it,” Rachel Wentz said. “I swear, she almost has your eyes!”
I was intruding on a private moment, so I excused myself back to the main dining room. It was also a good time to think about a plan of egress, given the complications. One glance outside the nearest window confirmed that the crowd was still growing.
Some of the children shrieked with delight when they saw me. I had forgotten how little it takes to make a kid happy. One of the boys there—I swear, his name was Oliver—looked like a happier version of me at his age, nine or ten. I had met Chela when she was fourteen, but she hadn’t been a kid anymore, with good reason to be sullen and cynical. I wondered why some kids forgot how to smile and others didn’t, even in an orphanage in one of the world’s poorest neighborhoods.
I checked out rear and side exits, in case of emergency. One of the kitchen doors led to an alleyway on the far side of the building, and an adjoining vacant lot. If necessary, if things got unpleasant, I could send our driver away as a decoy, and call for a taxi.
I used the telephone in the orphanage’s tiny, cramped office to call the local police station and ask for additional crowd control. The three people I talked to were all surprised to hear that Sofia Maitlin was in Langa. The man I’d spoken to earlier wasn’t available. We struggled mightily with each other’s accents, and they all lost interest when I said there was no riot.
“It’s not a crime to stare,” the highest-ranking man I reached told me before he hung up.
So much for police assistance.
We stayed at Children First most of the day. Maitlin sat in on classes, read storybooks to the younger children, told Hollywood stories to the older children, and toured the neatly kept living facilities. The rooms were large, four beds and two pine desks in each. The childr
en’s belongings were meager, but photographs and artwork were taped to the walls.
During our tour, Mama Bessie told us the story of her orphanage.
“So many children, so much need, so many orphans from this horrible disease,” she began, not mentioning HIV or AIDS within the children’s earshot. “Ninety percent of our children are here because the disease killed everyone who loved them, and whom they loved. Two of our little ones are afflicted, but we are able to afford medicine for them, praise be to God. We are well endowed because of Miss Maitlin. But it wasn’t always so! It started as a small dream—a phone call here, an inquiry there—and I completed the licensing procedure. Before I knew it, I had twenty-five children and a staff of mostly volunteers. Then Miss Maitlin came . . .”
“I’m not the hero of this story,” Maitlin said. “It was your vision, Mama Bessie.”
“. . . and now, thanks to her, the children have new clothes. And this new facility. And now I can pay my staff—which makes them much happier with me!” She laughed.
Under Mama Bessie’s watchful eye, Maitlin carried Nandi on her arm during most of her stay. Even when Maitlin put Nandi down, she never toddled far from Maitlin. I’ll swear it to this day: It was as if the child had divined exactly where she belonged.
Oliver trotted behind me, imitating my walk and mannerisms, desperate for a man to model himself after. It was far too easy to imagine Oliver sleeping in Chela’s room after she went away to college.
“Do you know Wesley Snipes?” he asked me.
“I’ve met him.”
“Can he really fight like Blade?” I almost told him he was too young to have seen Blade—but unsupervised TV was the least of his problems.
“Close enough. Wes and I know the same karate instructor,” I said, and the boy’s eyes grew as big as dinner plates. “The one time I met him was on the mat.” Fast, strong, with outrageous improvisational skills and an artist’s flair. Trading lumps with Wes was the very best kind of evil fun. “I feel sorry for anybody who thinks Wes is playing. But a real warrior knows his art isn’t about the fighting—it’s about being strong enough not to fight.” An oversimplification, but a damned good lesson for a ten-year-old boy.
“What if I’m afraid?” His eyes hung on mine. To him, fear was an up-close concept.
“Here’s a secret,” I said, crouching next to him. “Fear is fine. Fear is great. The best fighters in the world feel fear—they just also believe they can kick your butt.”
The boy’s eyes shined at me like I was Disney World cubed. For the first time since our private talk in her hotel bathroom, Maitlin gave me a small smile.
Visiting hours were over at five.
“We don’t want anyone to think we’re giving you preferential treatment,” Mama Bessie told Maitlin, eyes on the clock. “It wouldn’t look good for the commissioner of child welfare.”
“Yes, you’re right!” Maitlin said, nearly panicked. She raised the child’s hand up to her cheek, her eyes closed.
“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Mama Bessie clucked, reaching for Nandi.
When Maitlin gave the baby back to Mama Bessie, she let out a small sob she tried to disguise as a cough. Rachel Wentz put her arm around her, consoling.
“We’ll take good care of her,” Mama Bessie told her. “All of the babies get held every day. You see how happy they are.”
Her words were supposed to be a comfort, but I could guess the questions in Maitlin’s mind: The babies were held for how long? And were they held just once? She hid her eyes behind pricey Dolce & Gabbanas, but tears dripped from her chin. She had enough love to commit to a long adoption process, but enough distance to leave the baby in the hands of others. If I had been in her place, I’m not sure I could have walked out through those orphanage doors.
Out in front, the waiting crowd had grown to two hundred, maybe more. The late-afternoon sun was bright. An official news crew had shown up with video equipment, and all it took was a cell phone camera to post it on YouTube. By morning, the internet gossip sites would buzz with Sofia Maitlin’s visit to Children First.
“Miss Maitlin?” I said, stopping her just inside the doorway. “I can take you out from the alley in back. A taxi can be waiting in five minutes.”
“No, thank you,” she whispered. “This is easier than giving Nandi back.”
She had faced crowds all over the world. In a real sense, this was her job. I felt no threat from the worshipping crowd, and if she didn’t either . . . maybe we could do this. “Do you want us to try to shield your face from the cameras?”
“No,” she said. “I want the name of this orphanage in every paper in the world. Privacy is overrated.” Her voice was full of resolve, but her chin quivered. Her slumped shoulders told me how weary she was. I was glad to see there were two police cars instead of one, at least. We had been promised an escort through Langa from a police car this time.
“You’re doing great,” I told her. “From the gate, only eight steps to the van.”
“Seems like fifty,” Tim said.
“These are children from the high school,” Toto said from where he was waiting in the foyer. “They only want to see a movie star with their own eyes. Don’t believe everything you read, how everyone is a car-jacker.”
“That’s not what we’re worried about,” Rachel Wentz said, defensive.
“Ready for your close-up, Miss Desmond?” Tim said.
He opened the door. When Sofia Maitlin stepped outside, the crowd cheered. She waved once, shyly, and stared straight ahead. Her subdued, hopeful smile was Oscar worthy.
No sign of Ganya and his knife. Good.
The cameras were mostly cheap, or cell phones, but two bright flashes bespoke professional photographers. Paparazzi. There were two video crews, not just one. As I surveyed the scene, I realized what the cameras would capture: Sofia Maitlin’s pale skin afloat in a sea of grinning, dark-skinned Africans, many of them reaching to try to touch her. Maitlin’s designer sunglasses contrasted with the bland Western hand-me-down clothing of world poverty. And Maitlin’s wave—a polite reflex that would be captured on film to look like a politician’s pitch.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said as the van drove off. “I had to wear these glasses today.” Maitlin looked sick.
“That little girl is so amazing,” Tim said. “How did she end up there?”
“It’s terrible,” Maitlin said. She stared out toward the orphanage as it grew more distant, unwilling to let it out of her sight.
“Mother dead, father unknown,” Rachel Wentz said. “When you see this little girl, it boggles your mind. She’s a beautiful, healthy, little human being. And that’s why the adoption will go through like a breeze, Sophie—everyone’s gonna be rooting for this kid. I’ll post the pictures I took of the two of you, get them out. We’ll let everyone fall in love with her.”
“Her name is Nandi—not ‘this kid,’” Maitlin said sharply.
“Hon, I’m sorry this is so hard,” Rachel Wentz said. “But we will get Nandi.”
“Sophie, your hands are shaking,” Pilar said, offering Maitlin a bottle of water.
Maitlin drained her bottle in one pull, pausing only to catch her breath. “I don’t feel well right now,” Maitlin said. “I need to close my eyes.”
No one said a word the rest of the drive back to the hotel.
Sofia Maitlin’s wave to the crowd outside Children First had made international news by the time I got to Johannesburg the next day. On CNN, the viewer question popped up on the screen: Should celebrities receive special treatment in overseas adoptions? Ninety percent of viewers voted no. The war for public opinion was under way.
No clear shot of my face showed up in the video footage. I hadn’t really tried to avoid the cameras, but people like Maitlin seem to get what they want, whether the rest of us like it or not.
I boarded my plane back home to Los Angeles with a check for five thousand dollars in my pocket. Not bad for a day’s work; it was mor
e than I would have asked for. I decided I would send half the money to Children First, where a couple thousand dollars would go a long way. Remembering Oliver made me smile.
I couldn’t wait to tell April about my day.
Liar, my memory whispered. April had called me twice the day before, after I left her stranded, and I hadn’t called back. I wasn’t interested in either the pity or the anger in her messages. If she was pissed at me, maybe it was better that way. Give it all a clean break.
We were gone.
Grief came, so crisp that it shocked me, maybe the worst of my life. If I hadn’t been surrounded by strangers, I might have screamed.
At long last, I was in love.
Fuck.
Two months after our visit to Langa, Maitlin messengered me a wedding invitation and a phone number to make travel arrangements for two to São Paolo in March. In a handwritten note, she thanked me for donating money to Children First. I’d asked for anonymity, but Mrs. Kunene must have told her. I didn’t mind.
My father didn’t feel up to a trip overseas, so I took Chela with me instead. I could write a book about my adventure with Chela at the wedding of the year in São Paolo. Let’s just say that Chela gained a newfound respect for me and my growing clout; and I wouldn’t go back there without a bodyguard of my own. But that’s another story.
Maitlin’s wedding and its guest list whipped the tabloids into such an orgasm that they forgot her pending adoption. But two days after the wedding, when the news was reporting that Sofia Maitlin and her new husband were honeymooning in Cape Town, I got a text from an unidentified number, a one-line message:
WE GOT HER!—S.M.
The next day, the television screens were full of visions of Nandi on Sofia Maitlin’s arm. It was the most satisfaction I’d ever felt after a job.
If only real life had fairy-tale endings.
SIX
JUNE 2009
DON’T WORRY—CHELA HAS BEEN GOOD. YOU SHOULD BE PROUD! CAN “DADDY” COME OUT AND PLAY?—A FRIEND INDEED
From Cape Town with Love Page 6
