A single road separated the two primary segments of the ‘campus’. In the middle of the road stood a statue of a young boy, an eagle on his arm. The boy is releasing the bird to flight, a powerful metaphorical summary, according to Lillian, of the opportunities created by such institutions for those lucky enough to be well born. Further on, the ‘David quad’ featured a similar type of slim boy, but this one was simply looking outward, hand resting on a cocked hip covered by a boy skirt, creating a camp Peter Pan feel.
We climbed the bell tower. The view at the top was all-encompassing, pulling the breadth of the city easily under its wing, likewise the horizons of Sandton and Pretoria. The enormous sheer drop down to the front façade and the northern sports fields via a series of stone staircases, swaddled in upper-class creepers and surrounded by benches, pristine resting points and quaint yet classy alternative paths, was the kind of descent only those with permission would dare attempt.
The silence would have been an important, magnificent accompaniment were Lillian not still booming on, this time about her master’s thesis on how the Native Indian idea of photographs stealing your soul had finally come to fruition in the usage by NGOs of photos of indigenous locals, vital to securing the funding necessary to pay for upper-middle-class suburban Western lifestyles and a metaphysical lust to save the planet.
Which was all good and well, and possibly true, but the sound of her words was nibbling at my sanity. I reverted to Q&A format, speaking as slowly as I could to try to balance out her verbosity.
‘Where are you from in the US?’
‘Atlanta, Georgia. Can’t you tell from the accent?’ She looked serious.
‘Uh, nah. Skies. Hate to say it, but you all sound pretty similar to me. But ja, I guess now that you say it, it fits.’
‘Yeah.’ Her accent grew thicker. ‘Well, I’m a Georgia girl.’
‘You missing it? Home?’
Lillian blinked a few times and looked to the Pretoria horizon. ‘Beyond explanations. That’s how much I miss it.’ She locked me into eye contact. ‘But what do you think, Roy? About Fats’s gating thing. I mean, I know you haven’t been here long and all that, but I just wanted to get an idea of what your thoughts are—’
‘I knew Fats before, you know,’ I dodged, ‘and he was a pretty forceful guy then too.’ I laughed.
‘Sure. You can tell he’s used to getting what he wants. I’m not so sure that this is the same thing though. I don’t know, I just have doubts.’ Her eyebrows formed a McDonald’s arch.
‘Ag, I don’t see the harm so much. I mean, it could be good once it’s done. Then we’ll know that we’re safe, you know. But fuck, I haven’t really been here long enough. Haven’t got through the honeymoon yet, so what do I know?’
‘All I’m saying is there could be other, better things to do. And’ – her voice took on a sharp edge – ‘I seriously doubt whether we would ever be able to maintain such a big perimeter if there was an angry horde out there. There are nine of us. Just look at it. The fencing is like a square kilometre. It’s never going to work.’ She swivelled slowly, taking in a full view of her subject.
‘I think you need to understand, though,’ I said to her back as it turned, ‘that we’ve got a thing for fences, you know. They make us feel better. Secure.’
‘Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.’ The mousy intervener dragged her ass down the bell tower stairs, through St John’s and back over the KES hockey fields. I trundled obediently behind as she further discussed the dichotomy between the global aid system and development of narratives within non-profit organisations.
CHAPTER 23
Shangaan in many ways
My guillotine tooth was an emblem for many other shortcomings, its jagged edges thrown into relief by Fats and his relentless march towards organisation, development and security.
Babalwa fell, inevitably, into his orbit. She didn’t fawn over his every move – well, not completely, anyway – but she was certainly increasingly guided by his alpha force and his big-ape vibe.
Beatrice and Fats had once been entangled sexually, and Babalwa’s presence thus generated the recurring sparks of low-level community conflict. The three circled each other in a wary triangle during the initial months. Innuendos, double meanings and flashes of sharp eye contact spiralled, without ever getting completely out of control.
But even outside of the Babalwa context, Beatrice looked perpetually out of alignment. Her frown was fluid, her eyes restless. She wrung her hands like washing, eventually ramming them into her pockets, then pulling them out and starting the cycle all over again.
She was a profiler and a networker. Her corporate career had been carefully shaped and crafted to brush over the fact that she grew up in Beaufort West, and that she was the offspring of no one at all. She had achieved her elevated corporate status through a careful construction of virtual profiles, which she maintained with diligence and care. While Tebza was always clicking and checking, jumpy and seeking to plug into this socket or that, it was Beatrice who, of all of us, was the most distraught at the digital detachment – specifically the separation from her profile. Her make-up, her new jeans, her cultivated look – all of these were dysfunctional proxies for her deeper compulsion to maintain her identity.
‘It’s tragic,’ Lillian stated authoritatively. ‘You can see she’s actually physiologically stressed by the whole thing. I guess that’s what working in marketing does.’
Teboho spent all of his time in front of a machine, or clicking on a device, or removing or inserting that dangling white earphone.
Our evening joints grew into a ritual (he was farming a huge plantation down in the far bottom corner of St John’s), which meant I got to know him best of all.
He released snippets of himself to me around the pool, and I slowly patched together the image of a young stockbroker who spent most of his time doing other, more interesting things. We slotted into the druggie-techno lingo of his generation easily enough, but his references were more nuanced than mine, and many times I found myself bumbling along while actually adrift. I had no practical experience of hack, a substance of some importance to him in his pre-life. Even given my considerable Mlungu’s experience, I was sadly out of touch with the VR and nanotech mix, my frame of reference limited to glasses and transmission paint. Already, and somewhat surprisingly, I came from the old school.
He didn’t offer much beyond slight references; how hectic the brokers had got with the illicit algos, which had veered far, far beyond trading and weather and customised movie predictions. He dropped small clues regularly enough for me to know that I didn’t really understand how the boundaries of his world were shaped, nor even what they were made of.
Some nights – frequently, in fact – he didn’t offer anything at all. Neither did I. We sat in silence next to the pool and contemplated the universe that had unfurled over the city now that the lights were out.
Now, looking back, it’s clear to me that Babalwa had broken some part of my heart, and that I was suffering. The mirror had shattered. At the time I simply felt numb, and tired, and sad. I was navigating mostly through stubbornness. There were so many conflicting forces at play I wasn’t able to discern the true source of any of them. I was simply surviving. Babalwa, for her part, was clear about the course of things and made regular attempts to recalibrate the dynamics of our relationship. Punches on the shoulder. Warm friendly hugs. Etc.