In the midst of these preoccupations one of the leaders took Sonny aside at a backroom meeting and informed him he was one of a small group called to consult in Lusaka. Travel papers had been obtained for all six comrades. Although nothing was said, he understood that leadership outside must have made it clear he was to be among them: a recognition beyond anyone's doubts about him, including self-doubt.
There was a difference between leaving the crisis for a family visit and being ordered to go as part of the movement's activity. There was a difference between stepping out of the plane before Aila, before Baby, as the one left out, left behind, coming only as a husband and father, and arriving as part of an official party, driven away to meet with the highest level of leadership in the hospitality of President Kaunda's presidential residence. In the cupboard where he went to look for a suitcase he came across the old carryall Aila used to keep packed for him in case he were to be detained. There was nothing suitable for this journey. He went down to the Oriental Plaza, where she had chosen her curtain material, and bought himself, on the recommendation of the shopkeeper who also was a comrade, a zippered bag with shoulder strap, pockets, and a combination lock.
When he came back from the trip Will was there at the airport to meet him. Will! Will, on the fringe of the crowd at International Arrivals who pressed forward, kissing grandmothers and lovers, exclaiming over babies, blocking the path of other passengers trooping sheepishly behind their trolleys. He felt himself break into the same proud, foolish, happy grin with which all the passengers faced home; someone must have informed Will that his father was coming back on this day and time. Will had come!
They stood before each other as if about to embrace. Sonny was babbling something, his free hand already feeling for the photographs in his breast pocket. Of course he could not talk there and then of the substance of the consultation with the leadership in exile; he had to confine himself to family matters pursued on the side. — They're in great shape — wait till you see — you should just hear your nephew sing, before he can even speak! Baby's keen to have you come up, I've got a whole long screed from her for you—
Will took the bag over his shoulder and walked ahead to the parking lot. — And Aila?—
Sonny seemed hurt by the interruption. — I'll tell you about that later. She's in Sweden. Just missed her by a day. Only one day. — He settled into the passenger seat and closed the door. — Now let's get home, my boy!—
His son put the key in the ignition and then turned his head so that his gaze would be inescapable for either of them. — They did it yesterday. Burned down.—
I was working Saturdays in a cinema, checking tickets at the entrance, and I came back to the house after the early matinee shift. That street is always livelier on Saturdays than other days; everyone off work for the weekend, and no school for the children. And Afrikaners and our people living there— everyone gardening or washing cars, the kids performing acrobatics with their skate boards and bicycles, the Afrikaners' visitors drinking beer on the stoeps, our selection of aunties and cousins and suitors being entertained indoors.
Not many people come to the house where he and I sleep. Baby and her friends don't giggle and drink Coke sitting on the steps. The cockroaches have to themselves the kitchen where delicacies were prepared. The rosebushes somehow have survived although nobody waters them. Most of the time the place appears to be shut up. But on this day the small space between the fence and the stoep was full of people and a crowd, thickening at the edges as men left tinkering with motorbicycles and cars to come up, and women joined them, and boys toted their skate boards towards the attraction, filled the width of the street. I could see only the backs of sheets of cardboard attached to staffs or hand-held on raised arms, tilted about above heads. Someone was ranting in Afrikaans but he had no loud-hailer and I could make out nothing against the restless approval of the crowd, a horrible purr of strange pleasure, a human sound I have never heard before, pierced by the shrieks of small children playing somewhere down among the legs. All white people. I don't know whether our own white neighbours were among them or not, the expression on their faces distorted them all alike. I'm confusedly aware that some of our people were there, on the fringe, there was a scuffle, someone was punched: there were others of our kind under whose eyes I passed where they stood, quite still, back in the cover of their stoeps, up the street. I walked on and entered the crowd, twisting my shoulders this side and that to make way, saying — I could hear myself! — excuse me, excuse me, let me pass — idiotically, still the well-brought-up young man, the way my mother taught us. The placards tipped and jiggled at me. OUR HOME WHITE GO TO YOUR LOCATION COMMUNISTS + BLACKS = END OF OUR CIVILISATION GET OUT KEEP SA WHITE. There was a crude drawing recognizably supposed to be him: the big, dark-rimmed eyes, the curled nostrils. It was slashed across with thick red strokes. I struggled my way to the front door and put my hands up, palm out, stiff fingers splayed, thrusting into those faces from which yells and shouts came at me like bricks and stones, thrusting them away from this shelter where he said he'd provide a decent place for us to live. The man who ranted was tramping, leaping up and down, green socks sagging over running shoes, bruise-coloured tattoos on the ropes of thick tense red calves and bulging red shoulders bare in a sleeveless T-shirt, huge swollen red face bristling with blonde hairs and sweat, tears of rage — I don't know. Wat maak jy hier? Wat maak jy hier? They were roaring at me, taking it up as a chant.
What was I doing there.
Yes, what was I doing there.
But I screamed: This is my father's house. And before they could decide what to do with me I plunged back, back into them again and fought my way out. Some police had arrived at last (the wagging tail of an aerial on a van, over there). I was pulled free, saved by one of the same kind I had opened the door to when they came to search that house, to arrest him, to take my mother away. They dispersed the crowd but didn't arrest anyone or seize the placards; and that Saturday night, while I slept in the bed of my current new girl, someone in the crowd returned and petrol-bombed the house, burned it to the ground.
I was glad to see it go. The smell of smoke.
When I went with him to look at it, it was blackened bricks and timber, still smoking. A few of our people who had ventured out to stare stood back from us, as if in respect at a funeral. A kid was balancing himself on that plaster pelican — smashed— that had been a legacy from the white former owner of the property. The black policemen, sent after the fire brigade, to guard the place until there was some show of official investigation, tried to prevent us from entering what was left of the walls but were uncertain about their duty when he told them the house was his.
I followed him through shattered ice-floes of glass and soggy mounds of timber, clambered over contorted and melted metal, bent with him below the jagged shelf of lead ceiling that hung from a single support left upright. Your room, he said, making a claim for me, my life, against destruction, making sure I wouldn't forget. But there were no categories of ownership or even usage left. What had been the kitchen, the sitting-room, the places for sleeping were all turned out, flung together in one final raid, of fire and water, the last of the invasions in which our lives in that house were dragged and thrown about by hostile hands. He went poking at rubble with his foot and dirtying his fingers tugging away wet remains as if there were bodies to be found and rescued. He was breathing fast and loud in anger or close to tears; or both. Sick, sick, they're sick he kept hammering at me, only the onlooker and not the companion of his emotion. We emerged and our people who had dared to come out were still there, staring.