The Best Travel Writing, Volume 10

by James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger, Sean O'Reilly (ed) (retail) (epub)

  “I can’t believe you read Biko. An American read Biko? Wow. What did you think?”

  Before I could answer they continued. “When we were living in South Africa we joined the Black Consciousness movement. Biko was our spiritual leader. When the Boers killed him we protested. When BOSS came to arrest us as terrorists we fled to Lesotho.”

  “I take it you are not terrorists.”

  They burst into laughter, slapping their knees, slapping my shoulder. “No man. Hey, you must come stay with us tonight.” One of them took my pack and the other my camera bag, and we headed out into the sunshine and up a side street.

  They lived outside of town in a house made of cinderblocks topped with a green tin roof. They shared the single room with a sister of one of them. In one corner sat a wood-burning stove, used to both heat the house and cook the meals. Next to the stove were a few shelves sparsely populated with a few tins of sardine-like pilchards, a handful of onions, and bags of mealies, the corn meal staple that is the core of all southern African cuisine. A cot in the other corner of the room was reserved for the sister. My two friends slept on the floor.

  While the sister prepared the simple dinner, my two newfound friends and I discussed South African politics. Biko, Mandela, Oliver Tambo; the hated pass laws, banning, and indeterminate detention. They had become members of the banned (in South Africa) African National Congress or ANC, the organization nominally headed by the then imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Then came their necessary exile in Lesotho.

  Immediately after dinner, with boyish enthusiasm, they dragged me off to a local ANC meeting. We met in a small, dim room made opaque by cigarette smoke. About a dozen college-age men and women gathered around their American guest. The African women were crowned with Afros or tied-back hair; the men were slim and wore buttoned-down shirts with slacks. They talked politics with the serious and earnest demeanor of a university bull session. I was transported back to my college days reveling in the bond that ties together young intellectuals. When their talk moved on to discussion of friends in South Africa, friends who were currently in detention, friends who may or may not be alive, the superficial similarities between their lives and the one I had lived in college disappeared. None of my college friends were thrown in jail for airing political views; none were thrown out of a window on the tenth floor of John Voster Square for voicing a controversial opinion.

  The next day, after sharing the floor of the one-room house with my two friends, I left Maseru and morphed from an honorary member of the ANC back into a naive American tourist. But, thanks to Steve Biko, I was beginning to see. Biko was one of those who died in detention at John Voster Square.

  Durban sits on the South African coastline and is the largest Indian city outside the subcontinent. During the nineteenth century the British imported many indentured Indians to help work the large sugar plantations that dotted the subtropical coast of Zululand. Along with the manual laborers came an English-trained barrister named Mohandas Gandhi. It was in Durban that Gandhi set out on the path that would eventually lead him to be recognized as the Mahatma, or great soul. While living in South Africa for twenty-one years, Gandhi suffered from the racial inequities that would eventually be encoded into law in 1948 as apartheid. It was in South Africa that Gandhi first began his lifelong fight for equality and civil rights; it was in South Africa where Gandhi developed his nonviolent approach to injustice.

  A few weeks after my experiences in Lesotho, my friends from the Mushroom House and I decided to rendezvous in Durban. A half dozen of us headed to the coast and took up residence in a cheap Durban hotel just off the beach and the warm Indian Ocean. It was “spring break in Florida,” South African style. We hung out in town and, on those few days we weren’t on the beach, explored the interior of Natal Province where the Zulu tribe held sway.

  We met some Indian friends who worked in the computer industry. We talked shop, we partied, we talked women, and as always in 1980 South Africa, we talked politics. With two days left on our spring break-type vacation, we met our South African Indian friends at their apartment for one last blowout jawl (Afrikaans slang for party), drinking beer and smoking dagga. Rock music, the common international language of all young people, blasted nonstop until three A.M. We were having a lekker (Afrikaans slang for great, cool, unreal) time.

  As things were winding down, in an exhausted, drunken, stoned haze, I leaned over to our host and suggested he and his friends meet us on the beach in front of our hotel the next afternoon. My friend froze. Conversation immediately stopped, and the entire local South African contingent turned to stare at me.

  “What the hell is going on?” I whispered, my voice suddenly carrying across the now silent room. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” my Indian friend scowled at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you realize the beach in front of your hotel is a White beach? Can’t you understand that if we came to visit you at the beach, or in your hotel, we would be thrown in jail, you dumb shit?” I was stunned that he was pissed off at me. I thought I had started to take on the persona of a South African, and I had naively committed a terrible faux pas.

  My computer friends were Indian, or in South African parlance, Asian. Asians were not allowed on White beaches, or in White hotels. They weren’t even allowed on Black beaches (of which there were very few) or Black hotels. They were only allowed to frequent Asian Beaches and Asian Hotels. By simply sitting in their now unbearably tense apartment, we were technically breaking the law.

  These folks were not African, people of a different culture, people who spoke a different language, people who lived in a different world. These were my co-workers, folks of my world. Yet, for some crazy reason we were not legally able to spend time together. This was absurd. This made no sense.

  After an uncomfortable, sleepless night, I woke to a cloudless semitropical Sunday morning. The streets were mostly empty as most of the population was attending church. I decided to walk to a nearby café for a coffee. As I started down the deserted street the import of the previous night’s events hit me hard, and I found myself suddenly running down a main street of the largest Indian town outside the subcontinent screaming at the top of my voice, as though possessed, “This country is fucked! This country is fucked!” I was as shocked as anyone at the spectacle created by the mad American. Fortunately, no one called the cops.

  Returning from Durban I landed a three-month software-consulting gig with IBM. The firm was able to arrange a permanent resident visa for me. I settled into my new job, situated on the twenty-fourth floor of the tallest building in sub-Saharan Africa and began to take on the trappings of true expatriate in South Africa. I lived in Westdene, a middle class, officially White suburb of Johannesburg, the financial and business capital of South Africa. It could easily have been mistaken for a suburb of Atlanta. The streets were clean; the people were conservatively attired. American and European cars cruised its streets. There were no people of color.

  I shared a modest three-bedroom house with three native South African friends: Roy, a jazz bassist, his girlfriend Foosie, and an aspiring young actress named Elaine Proctor. My circle of friends had gradually transformed from a close-knit group of fellow backpack travelers into a community of South African artists, activists, and bohemians. My day life was very pedestrian. I got up at the same time every morning, took the local bus to work, wrote some code, took the same bus back home at five o’clock. However, after dinner, life changed dramatically.

  Elaine was part of an acting troupe that performed at the Market Theatre in downtown Jo’burg. At that time, the Market Theatre was the only truly multiracial institution in South Africa. Within the confines of the small theater the rules of apartheid were relaxed. The government tolerated a mixing of the races and turned a blind eye to normally prohibited political discussion. The Market Theatre was an island of racial normalcy, liberal political ideology, and enormous arti
stic creativity. Despite, or perhaps because of, the extreme inequity that saturated South Africa, its arts flourished. Universally acclaimed writers such as Nobel Prize winners J. M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer produced highly politicized English language novels that skewered South African society. Talented novelists such as Andre Brink and Breyten Breytenbach created equally damning works in Afrikaans. Playwright Athol Fugard continued the assault on South African institutions with works that led him to be considered one of the great dramatists of the later twentieth century.

  It was through Elaine, the Market Theatre, and my other South African friends that I was introduced to an alternative South Africa. In the evenings or on weekends Elaine and I would head to the Theatre. I would look on as the actors rehearsed their lines; the set builders swung their hammers, and musicians practiced their music. We talked about theater and literature. I was invited to join in wild improvisational jam sessions with respected jazz musicians. Within the cloistered confines, actors and staff, Black, White, Colored, and Asian, collaborated to produce piercing, sometimes brilliant dramas and comedies. The Theatre was quite literally the only place in the country where these activities were tolerated. I was anointed as an honorary American ambassador to the Theatre, and as such was able to participate in theater activities on a semiregular basis. Ironically, the Market Theatre was only a few minutes walk from John Voster Square.

  After an evening stint at the theater, perhaps at midnight, a racially mixed group of us would illegally sneak into Soweto where we would head to an illicit black-run speakeasy called a shebeen. Shebeens formed the social core of life in black townships such as Soweto. (The term Soweto is itself an abbreviation of Southwest Township.) We drank and danced. We laughed and played music. As this was still South Africa we also engaged in countless political discussions. For me this was an opportunity to communicate with the black South African intellectual community. I formed friendships with black actors, writers, journalists, filmmakers, and academics. We talked about what an interracial South Africa would look like, one where ability was the entrée to a bright new world. A different, hopeful South Africa was indeed beginning to emerge from the oppressive political gloom.

  One Saturday afternoon I happened to ask to Elaine how she got involved with the Market Theatre.

  “Let me tell you a story,” she said. “My father is a doctor and university professor. A few years ago, while teaching at a medical school in Durban, he became friendly with one of his students, a young black South African named Steven Biko. Even in his college days Biko was politically active. His charisma and eloquence touched everyone he encountered, including my dad. After he died in police custody, the Biko family asked my father, a neuropathologist, to represent their interests at the inquest. He performed the autopsy on Biko.”

  She paused, and when she resumed, tears were streaming down her face. “Ken, the cops beat the shit out him. I went to the trial; I saw the pictures. It was disgusting. Even though my dad testified that his death was due to a severe beating, the court found that no one was at fault. A few months after the trial my brother Andre joined the ANC. He was forced to flee to Botswana. I can’t even tell you where in Botswana, it’s too dangerous for you to know. There are no political innocents in South Africa. Rather than join the ANC, my reaction was to join the Market Theatre and channel my frustration and rage in a creative direction. Let something positive come out of Biko’s murder.”

  In her place stood Steve Biko, smiling and calm.

  Steven Biko was born in King William’s Town on December 18, 1946. He was accepted as a student at the University of Natal Medical School (Black section). In 1972 Biko founded the Black People’s Convention that led to the creation of the pan-African Black Consciousness Movement. Biko was first banned in 1973. He was re-arrested and interrogated four times between August 1974 and September 1977. Biko died under police custody on September 12 of that same year.

  At first, South African authorities attributed his death to a self-imposed hunger strike. Under international pressure, led by his friend Donald Woods, the South African authorities allowed an inquest to be held. The Biko family requested that Biko’s friend and teacher Neville Proctor serve as their representative at the inquest. The official result of the inquest was that Biko died of self-imposed brain trauma. No one was held responsible.

  Biko’s death created an international outcry that eventually led to the imposition of United Nations sanctions. A referendum to officially end apartheid was held on March 17, 1992. It passed with 68 percent of the white vote. On May 9, 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. He led the first multiracial government as the head of the previously outlawed ANC. This was an outcome that fourteen years before, all South Africans, regardless of race, thought was impossible to achieve.

  Steve Biko and I have a long history. Although I never met the man, his influence on me was profound. He guided me through the confusing labyrinth of apartheid South Africa. He drew me to my friends in Lesotho and their bitter exile from their home country. He delivered an unexpected gut check while partying in Durban. Apartheid was not a black problem; it was blight that demeaned all races. After absorbing the pain of hate and bigotry that had relentlessly beaten down my spirit, he relented, connected me to Elaine and opened my eyes to the enormous creative potential and goodness of the people that lay hidden behind the door of the Market Theatre.

  Through the agony of his life, Biko taught me that good people might be brought down to dark depths of cruelty and fear. Yet, through his martyrdom, Biko also showed me that hope is more powerful than despair and inculcated in me an undying belief in the potential of humanity.

  In November of 1980, I was offered a permanent job with IBM along with South African citizenship. Psychologically exhausted but spiritually enriched, I turned down the offer, and after living for close to two years in South Africa, headed back to the U.S.

  Ken Matusow is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Between technology startups and consulting contracts, he takes off to explore the developing world, sometimes for months or years at a time. He also works as a volunteer to assist technology companies in remote parts of the globe. Working with groups such as Geek Corps and the International Executive Service Corp, he has assisted and advised technology companies in Bulgaria, Mongolia, South Africa, and West Africa. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Barbara.

  ERIN BYRNE

  Storykeepers

  Alchemy: A power or process of transforming something common into something special; an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting.—Merriam-Webster Dictionary

  I haven’t been a saint my whole life,

  but I have done this one thing.

  —René Psarolis

  As we crossed the Champs d’Élysées, I looked past Rogier’s blond curls and the rumbling beast of traffic to the triumphal arch beyond, which held hushed shadows and autumn sun inside its simple shape.

  I saw Hitler cut a swath underneath.

  I saw the photo of a boy, his shoulders hunched and hesitant, his dark hair parted neatly but straining to spring out, a wide nose, a shy smile tugging his lip a little up on one side with the soft shadow of a dimple. What shouts out of the image of this boy are his eyes, two pinpoints of light in sepia, as round as eyes can be, as bold as eyes can be.

  Hitler had only been in Paris for a day, but his dark forces occupied this boy’s childhood.

  “Will we recognize him, do you think?” Rogier asked as he loped along in a confident stride that day in October 2011.

  “I don’t know,” I said. But I knew I would. And I knew he would ask me about Ginette.

  From the first time I went there in 2005, Paris exerted a pull on me. I didn’t know if it was the memory of a crackly slide of the Arc de Triomphe on the wall of my high school French classroom, or the pace of Parisian life that matched my pulse, or the stone philosophers whispering secrets to me, but I felt compelled to return, as if there were something essential I needed to fin
d there.

  I had been to Paris twice when I read Suite Française, a novel written by Irène Némirovsky, a writer of Jewish descent who fled Paris when the Nazis marched in. This book evoked Paris during the occupation so starkly that I began to travel there two or three times a year to do research on that time period. I spent hours in museums with my nose pressed up against glass cases, examining photos, handwritten letters, and mementos of Résistance members. I trailed after historians scribbling details of Göring at the Ritz, or a school in the Marais where Jewish children had been marched out, or an apartment where an Allied soldier had been hidden. I strolled the stalls along the Seine looking for old magazines and books, and read everything I could get my hands on.

  At this time, I wrote freelance travel stories and essays about culture, art and politics. I did not know why I fed this growing obsession with World War II Paris. It seemed to have nothing to do with me.

  As Rogier and I crunched through red and yellow leaves toward Hotel Argenton, we reviewed our schedule. We would spend the rest of this day with our man. Tomorrow we would film Edouard on location on Boulevard Malesherbes and interview him in my apartment on Île Saint Louis. I glanced over at a sidewalk vendor’s stand of vintage black and white postcards, and imagined the stark brutality of occupied Paris.

  Edouard Duval was a business associate of my husband’s who owned a factory in Gennevilliers, on the northern outskirts of Paris. He and his wife had become friends, and we would see each other several times a year in Paris or Seattle, where I lived. Edouard was tall, distinguished, balding, and reserved with a gentle wit.