There is close and intermittently argumentative exchange between Lesego, the master of the shack and the man who led to this confrontation with what has become circumstance rather than a crisis. It’s the dialogue all over the country.
What purpose in being here with them. What are any of us veterans of the Struggle doing about it. (Sitting around…shocked…Eish.)
The exchange has ended in abrupt conclusive silence. Lesego turns from it. — We have to get him out of here.—
The company stoops back under the cloth of the shed, hidden man follows. The girl looks about with random instinctive foresight, taking up this and that, the foresight of what can’t be done without anywhere, piece of soap, razor, into a plastic bag, underpants and small towel, chemist-labelled pill bottle along with a leather lumber jacket folded into a carryall she empties of baby clothes.
He doesn’t take off the elaborate headgear that surely will draw attention; he’ll be exposed a moment when he comes out from behind the storefront guard to Lesego’s car. But no — of course the thing is what every young black is buying this winter for warmth — shows you’re cool, man.
The young man is talkative in the back of the car beside the one who led the way to the hideout. In the rear-view mirror see the topknot bobbing with nervous loquacity. He speaks English with more confidence than many South African brothers although obviously he isn’t one of the class of some immigrant Zimbabweans, teachers and doctors — reminder that Mugabe started off well, reforming and advancing education out of its colonial limits. — I can’t follow what’s got into them, the people around Josiah’s place, we were good mates, we worked in the same kinds of jobs we could get, Nomsa and I, we all partied together I was best man at the wedding of one of her friends — that I have to be afraid when I’m living with her…Some of the others, Somalis with their shops, they think a lot of themselves, annoy people, but most of us in those shacks, we give each other a hand. I couldn’t believe Joseph first when he told — I mean even the people next door, round about, we drink and dance together between our shacks, we did, this Christmas even — now they’re after me! All of us! Out! Out! They think if we’re thrown out, they kill us, they’ll be rich in our jobs can you believe it, the pay we get? They’ll stay poor like we are—
But where will Lesego take him; Lesego must be thinking in the silence between our seats. The shacks are left behind, no one stones us from the trap of the dirt road to be travelled to the highway, no one’s recognised an enemy from Zim known to them and tried to drag him from the car where a white man was one of his protectors.
The silence, against the man’s monologue as Lesego drove, held, with the response of occasional throat-clearing sounds, syllables to show the victim he was being listened to.
— Where to take him. Who will. — Lesego in low bass just for that shared silence.
You can’t ask the young man if he knows anyone, anywhere. So there’s no answer, and that confirms they must keep thinking: where. The Methodist Church asylum the last place, now, must be overflowing the usual overflow — unless it’s been raided for its Zims.
Lesego seemed vaguely to be following the way to the Suburb, maybe considering somewhere else: or first to drop off the comrade seated beside him without hope that either will have a solution to offer.
As if come to a realisation he began again in the same confidential bass. — Jabu’s whatever-she-is, she doesn’t live in the outhouse now?—
— She moved in with Sindi — after what happened.—
Lesego doesn’t take his gaze from the road to accompany what he’s saying. — He could be there, couldn’t he — An observation. As if in anticipation of an obstacle in mind — Jabu might not like the idea… — A moment has to be left for response. But in the delay — I can’t take him to our place, the parents are with us these days, there isn’t even a bed — Jabu — oh maybe Jabu can fix something so at least he can become a legal immigrant.—
— Forget it. The Centre acts for people who’re being denied their Constitutional rights as South Africans. Anyway since when does ‘xenophobic’ ask whether or not you’ve been let in legally?—
What the purpose is in being there, in a passenger’s seat, in having been there in the shelter of shacks and the bashed relic of a truck door. What any of us is doing. Brought down the crowned centuries of colonialism, smashed apartheid. If our people could do that? Isn’t it possible, real, that the same will must be found, is here — somewhere — to take up and get on with the job, freedom. Some must have the — crazy — faith to Struggle on. Past the Gereformeerde Kerk pool choppy with winter wind to the house that will be occupied only until November; the outhouse is already empty. The passenger door opens just as Lesego switches off the ignition. — I want to go in and tell Jabu we’ve brought someone. Who…again? — There was a name, mumbled by the authority of the belly. Lesego thinks, Albert-somebody.
Saturday afternoon, Gary Elias and Njabulo in their football shorts and pullovers after the game, sprawled at ease while another sports match on television is vociferous blast. Concentrated by it they don’t hear Gary’s father come into the house. This generation inured to disturbance, muzak the atmosphere, commentary the broadcast chatter in public places, registering only the one side of cell-phone intimacies and banalities. Their aural senses are going to be worn ragged before beards begin to sprout. (Yes. But didn’t you have the Beatles going strong while you studied.) Sindi’s not there — where would she be but absent with her friends on a Saturday. Jabu’s taking notes from tomes dealt out around her — brought home some research from the Centre, concentration stops her ears against noise. She jumps up in welcome and dread. — Was it awful…why isn’t Lesego coming in.—
She gets the signal. Not that the boys would overhear. In the passage he makes for the kitchen but she takes his elbow, there’s the rhythm of chopping something, Wethu must be busy in there. — A man’s in the car — he was hidden by the family he’s been living with in the shacks. He wasn’t among all the other Zims attacked last week but people know where he is and they’re after him, now.—
She’s waiting.
— Lesego doesn’t know right away where to put him.—
Is some suggestion, solution expected from her.
— Lesego’s place isn’t possible, full house, the parents are there. We’ll have to take him.—
Her head is still lifted questioning; but not the unexpected.
— Lesego remembered Wethu’s place. I didn’t want just to walk in on you without a word.—
She turns without one, instead her lips, a quick kiss, not explained.
Lesego and the man came in and were welcome. — Would you like some tea. Or a drink, maybe that’s better. I’m Jabu Reed — our son Gary and his pal. — She’s silenced the sports match.
The stranger now takes off the headgear as the boys titter appreciatively, this is a sharp guy. He sets down the carryall; in this house.
It’s a claim recognised by Jabu. — I’m not going to ask what happened to you, it’s all been — we see it. On TV…the papers, hear the radio… — But the man: become by Lesego, their Zimbabwean. — It’s terrible — our people, whatever our people here feel—
He has a beer and again tells his history, the packer at a wholesale electrical appliance firm, truck driver, fast-food waiter. A dossier, three years of acceptance.
When Lesego swallows the last of his beer — he wasn’t offered his usual red wine, it’s not a usual gathering — and gets up to leave the other does not attempt to follow; it’s understood. But to be sure. — You say I can stay here…Meantime. — He thanks Lesego under Lesego’s dismissing protest.