The Mystery of Right and Wrong

by Wayne Johnston

  A middle-aged black woman wearing an orange head scarf, a green blouse and a light-blue sarong came out through the gate. “Get back inside, old man,” she said, pointing the way she had come. The rest of us got to our feet.

  “No, Seri, I will not go back inside,” the man said. “I am not a child who must listen to a woman.”

  She turned to face us. Every word she spoke she punctuated with a chopping motion of her index finger. “Why are you sitting here and watching us like this?”

  “We’re waiting for Fritz,” Carmen said.

  “You,” the woman said. “You must not give this old man drugs. He is my father. What would you think if I came to where you live and gave drugs to your father?”

  Carmen laughed. “I’d think it was great.”

  “Do not laugh at me, madam. I warn you, do not laugh. I have seen you here before with this man called Fritz. You are making nothing but trouble, the two of you.”

  “Well, sorreeee,” Carmen said, “but I think you could use something to loosen that cork you have stuck up your ass.”

  “Do not disrespect me. I do not use drugs.”

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  “Carmen,” Rachel said.

  “Yes, Carmen,” Bethany said, “settle down.”

  “The three of you are sisters. You have the same eyes. Three sisters selling drugs and giving them to old men.”

  “My sisters don’t even use drugs unless they get them from a doctor,” Carmen said. She pointed at me. “He’s never smoked a cigarette, as far as I know. My sisters used to be cool—well, except for one, but she’s not here—but not anymore.”

  The woman shook her finger at her. “The last thing we need here are drugs. They make people lazy and stupid. We stay home from work and lose our jobs. Our children fall asleep in school, if they go to school. No one takes care of the little ones. I would find a way to get rid of this Fritz, but, if I did, someone would get rid of me and another Fritz would soon show up.” She pointed at the township. “Someone from in there would get rid of me, or someone from out here. We turn on each other because of these drugs and all of you just walk away. I was a teacher, and now I am still teaching but I get no pay. That man, Fritz, should not have brought you here, and he should not have left you alone. He is a bad man and he is a fool.”

  “Fuck off,” Carmen said. “I’ve been here dozens of times and nothing has ever happened until today.”

  “Do not swear at me, young lady,” the woman said. “I am trying to help you. Some young men who have no jobs, no wives and no children are here. Young men, not old men like my father here. They are sleeping, maybe. If they come out and speak to you, don’t say a word.”

  “She’s bullshitting,” Carmen said to us.

  “Shut up,” Rachel said.

  “If the young men come out, don’t run,” the woman said.

  “Don’t run,” Carmen said in the voice of a whiny child. “Don’t shout, don’t cry. The big bad black men will get you. They can smell fear and will chase you if you run.”

  “I would like to see that one run,” the old man said, pointing at Rachel. “She is very beautiful. They are all very beautiful. I would like to see them run.”

  “I’ll run for you,” Carmen said.

  “You do not know what you are saying,” the woman admonished her. “We are not allowed in your cities and towns and homes except to work for you for next to nothing. Now here you are in our home, but you haven’t come to work for us. You have come without asking our permission. You’ve come without cards like the ones we must carry when we are in your neighbourhoods. I am trying to help you. I am trying to keep you out of bad trouble. You are a foolish, stupid woman.”

  Two young men showed in the gateway. Shirtless, they wore shorts and sneaker boots without laces. “They have nothing worth taking,” the woman said to them, her tone much softer.

  The old man laughed and raised three fingers in the air. “Three young white women. I think they have something worth taking.”

  “And you are too old to take it,” the woman said. She looked at Rachel. “Go away now. Take your sisters.” She looked at me. “Go away. Take these girls with you. If you provoke these boys, you will not see Fritz again. Go away, now. There is nothing here for you.”

  Rachel and Bethany did not look at the young men but at the ground. I looked at them and they stared back at me as if in disbelief at how out of place I was. They might have been in their late teens or early twenties and stood there in silence, appraising me.

  “They only came out because you started shouting at us,” Carmen said to the woman. She took another joint out of her pocket and held it out to the two men in the gateway. “Want some, fellas?”

  Their eyes widened and they smiled. “Oh yes, miss,” one of them said.

  “I will take it to them,” the woman said, plucking the joint from Carmen’s fingers as she spat on the ground at Carmen’s feet. She gave the joint to one of the young men, and the two of them went back inside. Four others soon took their place in the gap in the wall.

  The woman came back to us, holding her sarong clear of the ground. “You are not from here. I can tell by your voices.”

  “Yes, we are,” Carmen said. “Me, her, her and Fritz, we were born here.” She pointed at me. “He’s the visitor. But we all grew up in Canada, except for Fritz.”

  “So you have come to visit the continent that your elders stole from us. Your parents are from here?”

  “One of them is. Lady, I get it. I’m on your side. I know you got ripped off. I know about the slave ships and all that. Who doesn’t? You’re lucky you didn’t wind up in the States. I know that Africa was hunky-dory before the white man came. I’m just saying it’s not my fault where I was born. And I’d like to make up for what’s been done. I’d like to do my own little bit of reparation. I’m here to help you.”

  “God does not help those who help themselves to what belongs to others.”

  “I’m not God. Jesus. I’m not Jesus, either.”

  The woman spat on the ground again.

  “Fucking cunt,” Carmen said as the woman turned around and walked toward the young men, who obeyed her when she motioned them inside the gate. The old man blew Carmen a kiss and followed his daughter.

  “Bitch,” Carmen hissed. “Maybe I’ll call the cops.”

  “Shut up,” Rachel said. “Not another word.”

  Fritz came through the gap in the fence. Walking at a steady pace, he went straight past us without looking at us. “Time to roll,” he said. He sounded nervous. We followed him. “The natives are always restless when I leave. Not everyone gets what they want and some get nothing. Don’t look back. And don’t hurry. Hopefully, they’ll just watch us until we’re too close to the cars for them to catch us.”

  “Did something happen?” Carmen said. “Did that woman say something about us?”

  “They tried to bargain me down even though I’m practically giving it away. I used the word polisie a lot. It was one of those days.”

  “I bet that woman—”

  “Never mind that woman,” Fritz said, picking up the pace in spite of having warned us not to.

  “What the fuck did you bring us here for?” Rachel said, trying to keep up with him.

  “Who else makes life easier for them?” Fritz said. “How would you like to live like that with nothing to take the edge off? No electricity, no toilets, no running water, almost no money?”

  “I asked you a question, Fritz,” Rachel said.

  “I sell them whatever I can get my hands on,” Fritz said, breathing rapidly. “It’s cheap because it’s grown or made right here at home. The cops know what I’m up to but they don’t bother me. The more wrecked the kaffirs are the better, as far as they’re concerned. As far as most whites are concerned, especially the government. But I can’t
change all that. I can only do so much. It’s less risky than selling to the whites—though they’d pay a lot more. The government doesn’t want the whites strung out. They want to keep them on their toes so they can hold all of this craziness together. Whites buying drugs is bad for the economy. Money spent on drugs is money not spent on South African goods and services, not taxed, not invested in South Africa. Lower worker productivity, less efficiency, the loosening of social ties and family ties—you can’t afford that when you’re going it alone in the world.”

  “Fritz,” Rachel said, “you’re on something and it isn’t dagga. Cocaine? Speed?”

  “I’ve brought other people here,” Fritz said, “and nothing has ever happened. Nothing would have happened if not for that woman. She stirred up a lot of grumbling with all her shouting.” He glanced over his shoulder at Carmen. “And you, you should know to keep your cool by now.”

  “She started it,” Carmen said. “Uppity bitch.”

  She ran down to the ocean’s edge and stepped into the water.

  “No frolicking in the surf on the return trip,” Fritz said. “They already took my camera.”

  “Fuckers,” Carmen said.

  “Just walk, okay, everyone just walk.”

  “Uppity bitch,” Bethany said. “That’s a nice liberal expression.”

  “Fuck off, Bethany,” Carmen said.

  “Yes, Bethany,” Fritz said. “The only difference between you and them is that your drugs are paid for by your parents.”

  “Well, soon I’ll be getting them from a chemist paid by Clive,” Bethany said. “So you think you’re their therapist and their chemist.”

  “You bet I am. If it wasn’t for me, they’d be sniffing glue and drinking aftershave.”

  “You’re a true humanitarian, Fritz,” Rachel said.

  “That’s right, baby sister.”

  “The woman that you said stirred everything up lives here. Someone who lives here was bound to complain about you sooner or later. You should have told us where you and Carmen were going.”

  “If you’re so concerned for that woman,” Fritz said, “go back and introduce yourself. I bet you didn’t think to do that, did you? We came because we thought a great writer from Canada like Wade would like to see what a township looked like. I thought you and Bethany would too. But no more reality road trips from now on for third sister, baby sister and her boyfriend.”

  “It will take a lot more than green grapes and water to cleanse you,” Rachel said.

  “Baby sister—”

  “Shut your trap, Fritz,” I said from just behind him. “Shut your trap and keep it shut until we reach the cars.”

  I didn’t care if he pulled that knife of his, because I knew that, if we fought, I would win no matter at what cost to him or me. I would win because I had made up my mind to get away from this nightmare of a country as soon as I could convince Rachel that Bethany no longer needed her. I had had enough of all of it. I was overheated, thirsty and fed up with the beauty of the beach, the gentle surf, the treacherous perfection of the sea and sky, and the beguiling breeze.

  * * *

  —

  We followed the Saab up the slope, Rachel wrestling with the gearshift as the car lurched, stopped, skidded sideways in the gravel. We stalled out several times as Fritz pulled away from us, navigated around potholes and tree stumps that Rachel couldn’t see until the last second in the dust Fritz’s car kicked up; she had to brake so suddenly that we kept on slipping back as if we might slide all the way to the beach.

  “He is definitely on something,” Rachel said.

  Fritz reached the top of the side road, turned left onto the coastal road and drove away, rear tires screeching on the pavement.

  “Bastard,” Rachel said. “He just took off.”

  “My fault,” I said. “I picked the wrong time to piss him off.”

  She pressed the gas pedal harder as she tried to shift gears, and the engine stalled. “This would not be a good place to break down or get a flat,” she said as she restarted the car.

  “Fritz gets the last laugh,” Bethany said, laughing.

  “Very funny,” Rachel said.

  “Or I get the last laugh,” Bethany said. “I’m laughing, right? Am I, Wade, am I laughing?” She poked my shoulder.

  Rachel looked back at her. “You didn’t,” she said. “Bethany, tell me you didn’t.”

  “I think I did, I think I did. I think I took two tabs.”

  “When?” Rachel said.

  I turned and looked at Bethany, who doubled over, laughing, her hair obscuring her face.

  “Fucking Carmen,” Rachel said. “She knows you’re pregnant. She knows you’re on those pills.”

  I began to face forward again when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what might have been the entire population of the township making its way toward us on the beach, led by a group of shirtless, barefoot young men, their running form so perfect that, under any other circumstances, I would have admired it. “Jesus,” I said. “Look.”

  “Look, look, look,” Bethany said, shaking her head from side to side. “They’re giving us a royal send-off.”

  “Goddamn it,” Rachel said, stamping the clutch and shifting into low, flooring the gas to no effect. “Please,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Bethany looked out her window. “What’s that? Something’s coming. It looks like a giant spider doing somersaults.” She banged her forehead against the window. “Whoops,” she said. “That hurt.” She laughed. “Better get out of the way, Raitchie, or that thing will run right over us.”

  “I’m trying,” Rachel said.

  The front-runners, their torsos glistening in the late-afternoon sunlight, were a couple of hundred yards away.

  “It’s going to run us right over,” Bethany said. “I think it’s a train or something, Rachel, or maybe a bus, a big black bus.”

  Suddenly, she was out of the car and in front of us, half running, half crawling up the road.

  “Go get her,” Rachel said. I struggled to open the door, wondering how Bethany had managed to open hers so quickly with the car at such an angle.

  Bethany had lost both her flip-flops. By the time I got to her, there was blood on her feet and hands and on her face. She patted her halter top and denim shorts as if ants were crawling all over her. “Get off the road, Rachel!” she screamed, looking back. When she saw me, she opened her mouth wide but no sound came out.

  “Bethany, come back to the car,” I said. She kept crawling but I caught her, grabbing her upper arms.

  “Let go, let go,” she said, kicking me with her bare feet. I put one arm around her back, the other under her thighs and picked her up as she struck me in the face with her fists. “Don’t leave my flip-flops. I love my flip-flops. They’re so blue. See how blue they are?”

  I started back toward the car. The young men, streaming sweat, wide-eyed and smiling, had made it to the bottom of the road. They stopped there, ten or so of them, and looked up at me and Bethany, then back at the others who were hurrying toward them, gesticulating, shouting.

  The woman who had argued with Carmen was leading the second group. I looked at Rachel, who was in tears, still trying to get the car to move. A kind of calm came over me—a feeling of resignation or indifference—even as Bethany continued to struggle in my arms.

  Rachel got out of the car and stood by the driver’s door, looking down at the group of young men. Bethany stopped struggling and rested her head against my chest. “Wade’s heart sounds like a gun,” she said. “Bam, bam, bam.”

  The woman in the orange head scarf reached the bottom of the hill, put her hands on her hips, looked up at us and shook her head in seeming disbelief.

  “Is the young woman hurt?” she called.

  “Just cuts on her hands and feet,” Bethany said meekly, but
then she began to laugh uncontrollably. “There’s a gun going off in there,” she said, tapping my chest.

  “There’s no gun,” I called. “She’s upset.”

  “I know what she is,” the woman said. “Among other things, she is pregnant. I saw it in her face. Put her in the car and get into the back seat with her.” She pointed at Rachel. “You, get back behind the wheel. These boys will push you up the hill. You are all fools. All fools. You don’t know how big a bunch of fools you are.”

  We did as she said. I sat in the back, holding Bethany. Rachel got behind the wheel and eased the car into gear.

  “Push them, push them,” the woman shouted.

  Soon, surrounded on the back and the sides by the young men, all of whom were laughing, the car began to move and Rachel managed to get it started. “Thank God,” she said.

  We pulled away from the young men. At the top of the hill, Rachel blew the horn in appreciation but didn’t slow down or stop. We drove away while some of our rescuers waved and others raised their fists in triumph.

  “She’s not going home to Mom and Dad like this,” Rachel said.

  “She needs to see a doctor anyway,” I said. “Her hands and feet are cut up pretty bad from the stones and thorns on the hill. I hope there’s no blood coming from anywhere else. Those tabs of acid—will they hurt the baby?”

  “I don’t know. Mixed with her pills, they might. I should have warned Carmen not to give her anything.”

  “How long will the acid last?”

  “Twelve hours, maybe more if she really did take two. She’s so quiet now. I’ve seen her on acid before. This is not how she usually acts.”

  “Because of the other pills?”