Dreaming of Light

by Jayne Bauling

  Most of them have retreated to eat their food anyway. One boy has finished so fast he is already at the screened-off end of the shed where they have their toilet and wash themselves and their plates too, ready to use again.

  I like the recruits to stay well away from the door while I let myself out with the empty bucket and bag. I wasn’t always so careful, but with Taiba so determined to get away from here, he could easily decide to rush me and use the moment to duck out of the shed.

  Except that for whatever reason, he still believes I’m his friend. Even so, I should warn Katekani to be careful when she takes their morning food.

  I don’t think any of the other boys would try to get away. They accept that this is their life.

  Taiba troubles me. Whenever we’ve had one of these exchanges, my mind keeps going back to them. To the wish-believing in his voice, the shine in his eyes.

  I take the bucket and bag back to Katekani in the house, and hand over the shed key to Papa. Then I collect my own food from Katekani – better than the recruits get, the same as she and Papa eat, I think, but I can’t be sure because I never get to eat with them, only drink tea sometimes.

  It doesn’t matter to me. I prefer to eat sitting outside my room on the low bench I’ve built from a plank of wood and two hollow but heavy grey bricks I found lying behind the shed.

  The early evening air is soft. Day and night insects are all silent in this between time, but birds’ voices climb frantically as if for the last time ever. I can see one – I’d need Katekani to tell me what kind – on the roof of the house. Its feathered throat is pumping away, desperately pushing out the notes, holding nothing back.

  I miss birds in the mine.

  Katekani comes out of the house. I think I’ve sat too long over my food and she has come for my plate to wash. Then I see she wants to talk.

  I let her have my bench, watching how cleverly she uses both sticks to help lower herself to sit. I squat in front of her.

  “I told that boy Taiba the truth,” I say. “About the locking in.”

  “Who is this person he talks about?” she asks. “Spike Maphosa?”

  “He even speaks to you about that?” I’m surprised. “You must be having some long talks. Like you’re friends?”

  “I told you. I like him.”

  “He’ll get himself into big trouble one day with that Spike Maphosa story and thinking there’ll be help for him and Aires. That’s his friend. I couldn’t go on hoping like that.”

  “Sometimes it’s the only way you can keep on . . . I don’t know . . . waking up and doing the work. The only way you can keep going on – looking in front of you, thinking about tomorrow.” Katekani looks at me, not saying anything for a bit. “This Spike Maphosa?”

  “A mine story. Like a myth. Maybe there was such a person, maybe not. They say he was a stolen South African boy, forced to be a zama zama. Then he escaped. Got some people sent to prison. Now he makes art and gives his life to ending the . . . all of it, I think. Syndicates, illegal mining, the trafficking. It’s probably not true.”

  “Would you like it if it was?” she asks me.

  It’s not the sort of question I’m used to. No one else in my life here ever wants to know how I feel about things. And that’s good, because that way I get used to not feeling anything.

  “It would be nice, I suppose.” Then I flatten out my voice to add, “For the others. The recruits. Too late for me.”

  “Why?”

  I twitch a shoulder, wanting her to stop with this.

  “You can see. I’m already free.”

  The way she pushes out her lips and frowns at me lets me know she doesn’t believe me. Why should she? What I’ve got is only freedom compared to the way Taiba and the others have to live.

  But except for the frown, she leaves it alone.

  Instead she says, “Regile, have you finished with your walking around every day?”

  “You want to go down to town?”

  “We can do like before, earn some money, nè?”

  “All right. We’ll go tomorrow,” I say.

  “After I’ve given the recruits their morning food. Thank you, Regile.” She’s smiling at me.

  “It’s nothing.” Being thanked like that makes me feel uncomfortable.

  “You know you help me,” she insists. “Babe only lets me go with them in the truck when it’s time to buy food. And that other boy, the one in charge of the other recruits, he can’t even look at me because of this.”

  Her hand touches the thigh of her shrivelled leg.

  “How did it happen?”

  As she’s the first to say something about it, I feel it must be all right for me to ask. I never have before.

  “They say it was some sickness I had when I was a baby. I don’t remember. When my mother died, Babe said no one would want me, for work or wife, if I can’t walk without my sticks, so I must just stay and cook and clean for him. He didn’t let me go to school much any more.” She pauses, and something calm and certain in her face makes me think of Taiba. “But I will have a life away from here, Regile. Yes, I will.”

  So maybe she wants to earn money to start saving for this life of her own she thinks she’s going to have.

  I’ve walked down to Barberton with her many times before. In town she manages fine, but the way down is steep and difficult. Sometimes she spends her share of the tips we get from tourists before we leave, and that’s another way she needs my help. She has to have both hands for the curved ends of her sticks, so I carry her shopping for her.

  I could use some extra money too, for things like soap or even a new shirt and shorts if I get lucky. I didn’t keep anything back from the money Papa has sent through to Swaziland for my mother and the children.

  Chapter 7

  Sitting in its basin, Barberton is hot. The mountains rear all around. From down here you can’t see their wounds, all those old mine entrances, and they look so green and peaceful, as if no one has ever disturbed their insides greedy for gold.

  Tourists are safe for me to approach. They’re only interested in what they want to see and do, not in where I might be from or if I have the proper papers.

  They don’t need Katekani and me for the Heritage Walk. For that they can get pamphlets and maps at the tourism and information centre, where my fold-up map of Mpumalanga came from.

  They don’t need us to wash their cars either. The regulars who sit outside the Old Stock Exchange every day would chase us away if we tried to share their business. Anyway, how would Katekani manage?

  What we do is quietly hang around outside places like Fernlea House out at Rimer’s Creek. Then when tourists come along in their cars, or on foot as part of their walk, we go with them. If the local baboons are around, we say they might be dangerous and offer to keep them away, me with big stones ready in both hands, Katekani shouting loudly and clattering her wooden sticks.

  Mostly, though, we tell them what sort of birds they can see in the surrounding bush. Katekani has to teach me the names again when I come out of the mine. I forget in the dark, even if I sometimes see them in my head, though I try not to, the way I try not to think too much about other good surface things when I’m down there.

  Light and coolness and girls and my mother. Weakening things.

  Narina trogons, purple-crested turacos, crowned eagles. Katekani reminds me on the way to town. They’re names we first learned from a tourist who had laughed at our baboon story and showed us the birds. Now we show the same birds to other tourists. When Katekani isn’t clattering her sticks at baboons she can move surprisingly quietly, not disturbing any birds as we guide people through the bush along the ravine walk. She’s had her whole life to practise with her sticks.

  Some people just tip us, but a few pay really well for spotting certain birds. They’re the ones who aren’t really interested in Fernlea House, only the Rimer’s Creek bird trail. They come with binoculars and bird books with lists for them to tick off. It’s a kind of
greed they have. Some seem to be in competition with each other to be the first to see a certain bird, and get angry or sulky like children if they fail.

  Our first day, we get lucky and earn good tips.

  “See, Regile?” Katekani says, her shrivelled leg swinging as she hauls herself along between her sticks on our way back up to Papa’s. “I’m right. Taiba is right. Good things can happen.”

  “So didn’t you want to spend your share on something nice?” I ask.

  “I’m waiting until I’ve got enough.”

  “For what?”

  She turns shy. “I don’t want to tell you until I’ve done it.”

  I lift my shoulders, let them fall. “Can you go faster? Remember what happened with your father last year when we were late that one time?”

  “I’ll try. And you, Regile? Are you saving for something?”

  I think about the rubber sandals I bought last time I was out of the mine and couldn’t go home. I took them back into the mine with me, but they were soon lost or stolen. The soles of my feet are hard all over, not like skin any more. One day when I’m working directly for the syndicate, I want to have proper miners’ boots like Faceman’s.

  “Just small things I need,” I say vaguely. “Soap. Stuff like that.”

  And deodorant, I think, but I’d feel embarrassed to say it out loud. I’d like to get a girlfriend for while I’m out of the mine, but I need to smell clean and nice for that to happen.

  Our second day we don’t make any money. After that, we earn a little every day for a few days. Then it’s the weekend. Fernlea House is closed but still there are lots of visitors who come and look at it from outside and walk around looking at things, so we do well again.

  Some people want to give money to Katekani just because they’ve seen she’s crippled. She takes it, but her face goes dark every time it happens. I feel bad for her.

  “What you do all day, Regile?” Taiba asks me on the Sunday night.

  “I’m working. Making money.”

  “For us to go away from here?” His face lights up. “You make plan for us?”

  I just shake my head. “No.”

  “You will think of something,” he says, believing it.

  ***

  Another good weekend, and Katekani says, “I think I’ve got enough now. I’ll bring all my money tomorrow and we can stop early and shop, if you’ll help me . . . and maybe carry the things home for me, Regile? If they’re heavy, but I think they won’t be.”

  Mondays are usually a waste, but we get a young mother with small children who’s frightened of the baboons even though they mostly ignore the people walking past them as they laze and play and eat and groom each other and look after their babies.

  Next we get a young couple who must be new to birdwatching because they get very excited over even quite ordinary birds. They pay us well.

  “We should go and do your shopping now if we’re going to get back to your father’s house in time for you to cook,” I say.

  I’m wary of going into the centre of town, but most people ignore us. Some pretend not to see Katekani. One woman gives me an ugly look, brushing past us with a snorting sound. Maybe I smell bad after a day out in the heat. I bought my soap and toothpaste the other day, but not the deodorant.

  We take a shortcut through an outdoor coffee shop. I get a fright when I recognise one of two men in suits sitting at a table. Then I remember that his photo was in a newspaper I saw in Papa Mavuso’s house when I was fetching the recruits’ food.

  He’s a big someone in the Mpumalanga government up in Nelspruit. I think that’s what the paper said. I try to read a little every time I see a newspaper so I don’t forget everything I learned at school.

  The shop Katekani wants surprises me. It’s one of those places that sells a mix of things for inside and outside a house. There are coiled hosepipes and forks and spades hanging from one wall, but in front of it are boxes full of cupboard hooks and things for hanging pictures on walls. There are also buckets of fake flowers, bags of small coloured stones, mosaic kits and pots for plants.

  Katekani leads the way to where the paints are, and I think she wants to make some improvements to Papa’s house. Then I see that she’s only interested in some really small pots of paint. Tiny. I don’t know what they’re meant for. Decorating toys maybe, or painting on plant pots like one I’ve just noticed with little pink and purple flowers on it.

  She chooses red and yellow, and then she stands for a long time trying to decide between green and blue, because they cost a lot for their size and she doesn’t think she’ll have enough for four.

  “Not if I want brushes.”

  She has this trick of pointing with her eyes, and I see a jar full of paintbrushes like the ones we used in my very first year at school when the teachers used to let us paint and draw a lot in between learning letters and figures.

  I think maybe I should offer her some of my money so she can have all four colours, but then she might look the way she does when people give her money just for being crippled.

  “Green,” she decides suddenly. “Of course, green.”

  I don’t know why, but I’m glad she chose green. It’s one of the colours I think about – try not to think about too much – when I’m inside the earth, remembering all the different greens you get on trees and other plants.

  I add the green tin to the other two I’m holding for her. Then I must hold up some paintbrushes for her to choose three – one very fine, the others a little fatter.

  “You’ll need stuff to clean them,” I say.

  “No, there’s not enough money. I’ll only use them once and I’ll be fast,” she tells me.

  “What do you want to paint?”

  “You must wait until I show you.”

  There’s a light in her eyes and a little smile working away at her mouth. They make her almost pretty. Sometimes I’ve wondered what it would be like to have a girl teasing me, hinting at secrets and getting me to guess them.

  Now it’s happening, but I don’t know how to behave, what to say or do, because what if I’m wrong? Anyway, I don’t know how to laugh and joke around with girls in the way an eighteen-year-old should. I haven’t had any practice past the school playground when us boys did the teasing.

  “You should buy something useful with your money.” I speak in the voice I use to get Taiba Nhaca to stop with his wishing-hoping-believing.

  Katekani just looks at me and doesn’t say anything. I don’t think she’s upset or angry, though. It’s more as if she knows something that I don’t.

  That idea gives me an uncomfortable feeling. I have another moment of not knowing what to say.

  The woman at the till puts the paints and brushes into a thin plastic bag. I’m ready to carry them back to Papa’s house, the way I’ve carried her other purchases in the past.

  “No, give the bag to me,” Katekani says, two of her right-hand fingers loosening their hold on her stick. “Put it in my hand. It’s light enough for me to carry.”

  I do as she says. I can tell it’s important to her. She has an excited look now, as if she’s taken the first step towards something she has been thinking about for a long time.

  When we get back up to Papa’s house, she stops at the place where we usually part, she to go to the house and me to my room.

  “Regile, bhuti?” She is breathless from the climb and bent over between her sticks, resting. “Will you keep the things for me? In your room? I don’t want my father to see. Just for tonight. I’ll paint tomorrow. I won’t go to town with you.”

  “All right,” I agree, beginning to be curious about what she’s planning to do. “I’ll put the bag where you can reach it. Then you can get it any time.”

  The room has no lock, but Papa never comes there.

  “Thank you, my brother. That Taiba boy is right. You are a good person.”

  Hearing that makes me feel angry. I’m not good. I haven’t done anything for anyone. Not for Taiba or K
atekani.

  Later, when I take the recruits’ food to the shed, I look at Taiba. I don’t often think about goodness, but I suppose he’s a good person. Inviting that beating from Faceman to spare Aires – that was the act of a good friend.

  Maybe even a hero.

  No. How can a young boy like Taiba with his stupid optimism be a hero? There are no heroes.

  He sees I’m looking at him and he starts to smile.

  “Plan, Regile? You have big plan for us?”

  “No –”

  “We had the exercises today. With those men. So I look hard to see the way we must go. To get down from here. But after that, I am not sure.” He stops, and for a flying moment some sort of sadness pulls at his face and even his shoulders. “Aires, he cannot walk far. We must leave him. I think it will be all right. We find Spike – he will get Aires and the others.”

  “You keep saying we.” I speak harshly. “Stop counting on me for anything.”

  “Please, Regile?” Now he’s all eager and urgent again. “You help me. Then it will be all fine. I know this. You are strong. You know big things . . . You say some police, they are Papa’s friends? So we find Spike. He know good police.”

  “Spike who doesn’t exist.”

  “When you are out, making the money? In that big town Barberton. Ask some people there – Spike, where is he?”

  “Take your food,” I say.

  Suddenly I’m tired. No, I’m feeling helpless, as if the way he keeps battering me with his crazy belief has stolen all my strength.

  As if he’s making me think like him. I even get a picture in my head – of Taiba and me, the two of us rushing down the hill together away from this place. Away from mining. Running and hiding.

  So even my brain has gone soft now.

  I can’t sleep from thinking too much about how I can turn myself into a hard man.

  In the morning I take the money I’ve saved and walk to Barberton. It takes less time without Katekani.

  Buying deodorant is difficult. There are so many different kinds, and the names have nothing to do with smelling good. At first I’m not even sure if the sprays and roll-ons and sticks I’m looking at are really meant for men.