Her name was Pascale and—so much for the romantic fantasy—she was married. She was a medical doctor, from Paris, but lived with her husband, a surgeon, and their child in Tahiti. They were tired of Tahiti, but didn’t want to move back to France.
“In France, we are stuck. If we want to switch fields in medicine, even if we go back to school, we are not allowed. If we moved here, we could.”
“But why South Africa?” I asked incredulously. “This country is a mess.”
“You can’t believe everything you read,” answered Pascale. “I want to see for myself.”
At dinner that night we learned that our itineraries were nearly identical. We agreed to share the cost and driving of a rental car and explore the country together.
Over the next three weeks, we drove more than 3,000 miles, possible largely because of good roads and Pascale’s passion for fast driving. We started in Johannesburg and crossed the Transvaal to Krueger National Park, then through the independent country of Swaziland and along the Indian Ocean coast past Durban and Port Elizabeth before ending our travels in Cape Town.
I saw incredible wealth, clean modern cities, and the most developed highway system in all of Africa. It was not only human wealth: the countryside burst with fertility and possibility.
And yet I always reminded myself that we traveled the white man’s road, a privileged road which led mostly to white homes and farms. We saw the other roads from a distance. They were small, narrow, full of potholes. These were the roads that led to the other South Africa, to the townships and to the homelands. I only knew about these areas from books, magazines, and film. I would have liked to explore and attempt to understand that part of South Africa, but it would have to wait for another trip.
Pascale and I traveled well together, and I appreciated her insight and companionship. But when we discussed politics, we invariably argued.
I’d recite my book knowledge and point out the huge inequities that existed between the whites who, with 18 percent of the population, had confined the blacks to 13 percent of the land. She replied that the rest of Africa lived in dismal poverty and disease.
“You are so critical of the whites,” Pascale would say. “Give them a chance! At least they haven’t done what your country did to the Indians.”
We argued about the international boycott. I said it was necessary to force South Africa into realizing the immorality of the apartheid system, and she argued that putting the economy into a tailspin mostly hurt the poor, a position backed up by nearly all the nonwhites we spoke with.
“You Americans are so self-righteous, so quick to judge. What do you know about this country?”
She had a point. I was finding South Africa as difficult to understand as Japan. During our stay in Johannesburg, we met a man named Adrian Turgel, a white man in his early 30s. Adrian spoke nearly perfect Zulu, and had been arrested several times for his advocacy of black property rights. He immediately corrected me when I called the situation in South Africa a problem between blacks and whites.
“No, no,” he said impatiently. “It is about tribalism.”
He said that among blacks, there were the Zulu-speaking tribes, the Xhosa-speaking tribes, the Tswana-speaking tribes, and the Swazi-speaking tribes—to name just a few—who often feuded with each other. Even within the European community, there were tribal differences: The people of English descent touted distinctly different political and cultural views from the Afrikaners, the South Africans of Dutch descent. The Afrikaners owned and tilled the land. The English were the traders, the coastal people who favored more liberal policies toward blacks.
But I didn’t need books or history lessons to tell me about the prevalence of fear. The fear wasn’t only among the blacks and “colored” who daily faced oppression and violence, but also among the fortified and privileged white communities. It hung over the country like a dense smog, inescapable. One day I went to an Afrikaner bank to cash a traveler’s check, and before I opened my bag or mouth the teller addressed me in English.
“Why?” I asked.
“You look so relaxed, you have to be a foreigner,” she answered.
At one point we were driving through a township near Durban when suddenly, as we turned a corner, we encountered a huge, yellow tank full of soldiers, a “Yellow People Eater,” as they were not-so-fondly called.
Another time we picked up a black hitchhiker who told us she worked as a common clerk despite her college degree. “I’m actually colored,” she told us, “but why should people ask me whether I’m Indian or black or whatever? I’m HUMAN!”
“Poor South Africa,” I said to Pascale after we dropped the woman off. “We can safely drink the water. Big deal.”
“If you die from bad water it’s a big deal,” she said.
After we had been traveling together a while, just after Krueger Park, I told Pascale about the Shinto project. Telling stories is like giving away something precious, and I hoped that she’d appreciate what I was giving her. Instead she listened without comment, and her indifference made my words seem empty. “She thinks I’m a crazy Californian,” I thought. “I better shut up.”
But later, when I brought up my love life, I realized that she had been listening. I told her about Donna, about our difficulties, and about our eventual split, which I thought was partially caused by my commitment to the Shinto project.
“You chose this project—putting simple stones around the world—over her?” she asked incredulously. “This is what you think? There was something else, no? She was ugly? Stupid? You didn’t like her?”
“It’s more complicated than that. She wanted to live in New York.”
“That doesn’t matter. You can make things work if you want,” Pascale said quickly. “Didn’t she help you?”
“Yes,” I said reluctantly. “She was very helpful.”
“Did she believe this, this peace project would actually work?”
“I’m not sure. I know she saw it as a kind of huge art project, a performance piece.”
“She knew you had to do it alone, right?”
“Well, yes, actually she did say that she understood that it was my project. That’s why she didn’t want to interfere.”
“The hero. I know men like you. They are out to save the world. You think you have to do this, to prove yourself. I wouldn’t have been so patient.”
“She wasn’t all that patient.”
“Do you really think being a hero makes that much difference to a woman?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I don’t understand,” she said. “But you don’t either. You haven’t figured out where Donna—or any woman—belongs in your life.”
“Maybe. But this story isn’t about Donna and me.”
“Of course it is. All stories are about love. What else is there?”
“Now you sound like her! But how can I talk about women, or even have a relationship, when I haven’t even gotten over my own fears?”
I was quiet a long time. I finally said, “Donna and I were like brother and sister. She helped me express my internal world through art. She polished me. I think I helped her too: I helped her to New York where I’m sure she’ll be discovered. She’ll be a famous artist some day, I know it.
“We were good for each other, really,” I said. “But I think we pushed it about as far as we could. I wasn’t ready to be with a woman in another way.”
“Then maybe that should be your next project,” she said. “Women. It would be more interesting and you might learn something really useful.”
After nearly three weeks in South Africa, I still carried the Shinto god. It wasn’t for lack of choice: there was the fantastic beauty of the Transvaal and Krueger Park, and the dramatic Indian Ocean coast. Of course, I could always point to some tangible reason for not placing the god: lack of water, simple privacy, or convenience. But mostly I just felt not now. Relax. Have faith.
By the time we arrived in Durban, on the sou
thern coast, I was tired and irritable. It didn’t help when I saw a white woman yank her three-year-old from a freshwater pool at a playground near the beach. The child was playing with two black children her age, and the mother had a fit. The child reached sadly back to her playmates. It was a pitiful sight, worse even than the signs on the beach designating “whites only” areas. “Why the hell can’t they get it together,” I thought. “Stupid people! They have so much, why don’t they just share?” Pascale, who witnessed the scene, was also shocked.
The next day, at a hotel restaurant in Port Elizabeth, we met a South African doctor and his wife, who was from Namibia. He was an expatriate now, living in Canada, who had just returned to South Africa for a short vacation. I told him about the incident. He looked embarrassed and shrugged.
He told us that he had left his native country for three reasons: he didn’t want to serve in the army; he could make more money in Canada; and apartheid. In that order.
“South Africa will have black rule eventually,” he said. “It’s inevitable. But it will take an act of God, a miracle, divine intervention to make it a peaceful transition.”
Pascale listened to him carefully. Like me, she hadn’t found what she was looking for. The bland towns bored her. The food was uninspired. She was getting fed up with the people. How could she live and work in this environment? What would she tell her husband?
“Isn’t there any place in South Africa one can get a decent meal? Go to a concert? An opera?” she asked.
“You haven’t been to Cape Town?” the doctor asked.
I said no, it was our last destination. We’d probably be there tomorrow.
“It’ s different,” he said, “You’ll see.”
We returned to our separate rooms. A refrigerator motor kicked in and I turned on the television to drown out the noise. Dallas, the American soap, was playing, and I turned the TV off. I stuffed plugs into my ears. Before I fell into an anxious sleep, I wondered what I would do if Cape Town wasn’t right. Where would I place the god? I couldn’t stay in South Africa forever.
When the nightmare began, I was at the top of the stairs leading out of the bomb shelter, rather than inside. The violent noise, which usually came from behind the escape hatch, now came from behind the door, which I slammed shut after running up the stairs. I was terrified as usual. But this time I looked around me and saw Kazz and the teacher dressed in white robes. As they waved swords above their heads, they chanted.
I turned back to the door and cried the words, Amaterasu-Omikami, repeating the name of the Sun Goddess over and over. I reached for the doorknob. Suddenly the door flung open. An evil stench slammed into me. Then something horrible, without form, gripped me. I struggled and turned back to Kazz and the teacher, but they had disappeared. I was alone.
“Go away! Go away!” I screamed. Never had I confronted the creature who guarded the door. I felt nauseated and overwhelmed. The more I struggled, the more I became entwined with the creature. I reached for the doorknob and grabbed it for support.
I don’t know where the voices came from. They were soft and tender and not at all filled with terror. I was suddenly aware of my heart beating furiously. For the first time since Kazz and the teacher disappeared, I felt the presence of others—powerful others, who, like the evil one, were formless. I had the vague feeling that these were the spirits of the great teachers of the world: Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, and Christ. They were all talking to me. Then it was only Christ’s voice I heard.
“You!” I cried.
“Who did you expect?” the voice answered calmly.
“Help me!”
“Let go. Relax. Open your heart.”
I began to pray. It was a very simple prayer. It wasn’t for me; it was for the people of South Africa, so full of fear and hate.
Then I took a deep breath, and as I released the air I imagined myself pliant like a willow tree. All the while the evil swept past me in spasms, buffeting me with unimaginable force. This went on for a long time, but I kept breathing deeper and deeper, imagining that my heart was opening wider and wider until it encompassed the very evil itself. Then I let go of my grip on the doorknob, and suddenly I was on the other side feeling porous and floating happily above the stairs. There was no sign of the beast or the door.
When I awoke, I was clutching the tiny sword Kazz had given me for protection. I turned to my side and placed it carefully on the dresser. I had found my power. I rolled over and fell back into an easy sleep.
The next morning I was relieved when Pascale offered to drive. I pushed my seat back, so exhausted from my night of revelation that I hardly noticed the fantastic speeds she was hitting. I stared at the green hills, then at the well-tended vineyards that bordered the road. Far away, lightning struck a mountain range. Huge bolts shattered the air, and I watched the show with amazement. The world was so beautiful, and I felt at peace.
After a while, I dozed.
“Cape Town!” Pascal cried, slapping my leg.“It’s beautiful.”
The sky cleared, except for one small cloud which spouted a rainbow that dropped to a cluster of elegant buildings. Pascale stopped the car so I could snap a picture. Table Mountain rose abruptly 3,500 feet above the town, its sheer cliffs wet from the rain. Wisps of fog swirled around the summit.
As we drove to the center we both felt an immediate change. This town was unlike anything we had seen in the rest of South Africa. If Johannesburg felt like Los Angeles, with its impersonal high-rises and suburbs sprawling out from no apparent center, Cape Town was like San Francisco. The streets were crooked and narrow, the buildings old, dating all the way back to 1652 when the city was founded by Dutch traders. The air was sweet and fresh from the two oceans that met at the Cape. I felt at home.
We found a lovely old hotel near the spacious legislative complex. The clerk was friendly and relaxed. That night we dined on ostrich steaks and fresh salad, and agreed it was the best food we’d eaten in South Africa. As we strolled the city after dinner we saw people of different races walking hand in hand. I went to sleep confident that I had found a place for the god.
I envisioned that when the time came for me to place the god, I would go alone. I couldn’t imagine Pascale would be interested. But when I told her my plans, she wanted to come along.
“At first, I was sure you didn’t know what you were doing,” she said. “But you are so persistent.”
“You thought it was stupid.”
“It might be. It might not. Now I’m not sure.”
Together we drove along the north shore of the Cape. We stopped at a supermarket that could have been transplanted from the United States and bought a roasted chicken, bread and wine. We picnicked on a huge boulder overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, watching seals play carelessly in the combers. Near the car a baboon arrogantly strolled in search of a tourist handout. We gave it a banana and drove on.
At the Cape of Good Hope, there were hordes of German and British tourists posing on the ledge overlooking the Indian and Atlantic oceans. It was foggy with intermittent blue. I found a ledge about 150 meters above the water and watched the two seas join together between puffs of wind and fog. Pascale placed herself on a ledge above me and snapped pictures as I steadied myself in preparation for throwing the god.
“Careful,” she yelled down at me. “Don’t get so close to the ledge.”
There was no need for worry. I wasn’t going to slip or jump. There would be no such dramatic ending to this story. The finale had already occurred. It was that moment in my nightmare when I finally had the power to face my worst fears and open the escape hatch door. It was the spirits, who I’d finally accepted, that helped me approach and open the door, but it was the receptiveness of my heart—love—which had ultimately protected and saved me from the evil.
And what did I find on the other side of the door? I found a world where fear wasn’t in control. A world where I could allow the good around me in. Without fear to stop me, I felt I could final
ly engage in life in a way that I never knew possible before.
The god left my hand and flew through the air. It splashed, just off the rocky beach, into the crashing surf.
Pascale waved and said we should leave soon. She was flying back to Johannesburg in a few hours, while I had a return ticket to Brazil where I would place my last two Shinto gods. I stared across the two oceans for a long time before scrambling up the cliff.
After South Africa I returned to Rio de Janeiro. There I retrieved the two gods I had left earlier for safekeeping with the manager of a hotel on the praia Copacabana. I then took a short plane ride to the international airport at Iguaçu Falls, on the borders of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. At the falls, under helicopters carrying gawking tourists, I threw one of the gods into a deep, turbulent part of the river. The spot was framed by a rainbow created by the cascading torrent of water and the bright noon sun.
I flew back to Rio and caught a plane to Manaus, the wild frontier town situated in the heart of the Amazon jungle. By now I was sick and exhausted from a grueling six weeks. I boarded the Marreiro II and placed the final god at the point where the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimoes meet and become the Amazon. It seemed a fitting spot to end my involvement with the Sword of Heaven. Two waters, as distinctly different as Kazz and me, meet to form one great body of water moving toward the sea.
EPILOGUE
High mountains
are worn down by the waters,
and the valleys
are filled up.
epilogue
San Francisco, April 1999
I’ve spent the last eleven years slowly readying this story for print, this time with both Kazz’s and the teacher’s encouragement. I’m back in San Francisco after living two years in Prague and four years in Washington, D.C. From my North Beach window, I can nearly see the apartment where I first heard of the Sword of Heaven in 1982, seventeen years ago. I can see the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond to the Pacific Ocean where Kazz and Juan placed a god together. I’ve twisted around the spine of a spiral, and although it looks like I’m back where I started, I’m not. The world has changed and so have I.
The Sword of Heaven Page 17
