by Raven, R. D.
"Sure. I could introduce you to some of the other girls from the US as well. What's the blog address?"
"Sandilesaysitatwits.blogspot.com," he said. "Yeah, I'm hoping they'll give me a column in the Times Live or the Mail & Guardian one of these days. Maybe when they see my brilliant writing skills online they'll take me up." He stood, getting ready to go. "Although, part of my problem is I write and write and write and write and never post anything. I have about three years of material on my computer that I haven't gotten the guts to put online. Maybe I'll put it all in a book someday."
"You should."
He shrugged.
"The … Times Live and Mail & Guardian—are those newspapers?"
Sandile nodded.
What happened next was something that left Jaz shocked, and a little afraid.
As Sandile had stood there (half-standing, half getting ready to go) minding his own business, a basketball—out of nowhere!—came out and hit him on the head! It wasn't too hard, but it caused him to grimace and almost drop his glasses. And, when she turned and saw the white guy sauntering over toward him (a smile of satisfaction on his face), her stomach sank, and the hairs on her skin bristled.
Could this be the racist South Africa she'd always heard about?
Typical!
"Hey man!" said Sandile, rubbing his temple.
The tanned boy who'd thrown the ball carried a sordid grin, his wavy hair flapping against his brow in the wind. Black, baggy shorts with the number twenty-three in red on them swayed loosely above his white high-tops. His gait was casual, relaxed, like a lion surrounding a kill. Jaz was sure he was about to ….
She didn't know what he was about to do—maybe start hitting Sandile ... or beating him?
She did the only thing she thought to. I mean, she was from the USA, wasn't she? The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave; The March on Washington and MLK and I Have a Dream and—
She quickly pushed off the wall and positioned herself between the threatening boy and Sandile who was now behind her.
"Stop!" she said, her hand out like a US Marshal—all she needed was a friggin gun holstered at her side and her hand hovering above it like hot-damn John Wayne I say.
The boy did stop, his smile now gone, replaced by a cocked head and raised eyebrow as if to say, Huh?
And from behind her, she heard Sandile's voice. "Jaz?" And his voice did not sound angry, but caring, as if about to tell a child the truth about Santa Claus.
The creeping sensation that she had done something wrong began to waft into her thoughts like the smell of a dumpster.
And then the boy laughed—not a big laugh, not a laugh at all really, just a sort of "hah!"—like she was an interesting animal he'd found in the bush and was looking at curiously. She felt the steady firmness of her arm—like it had been made of reinforced steel—ease up and quiver.
And then a gentle hand from behind her, touching her shoulder.
"Um—Jaz, this is Miguel, my best friend." Her arm lowered, her eyes flicked to the ground.
Could this moment be any more embarrassing?
"Er—oh ...." She didn't even greet him. She only slid over to the side and looked down, shaking her head in mild bewilderment. Finally, she looked back up. "Hi," she said, her hand convulsively waving hello (the same hand that had convulsively formed a barricade between the two boys only moments ago and convulsively stretched out to shake Sandile's hand earlier. She made a mental note to do something about said hand).
The Miguel guy (still looking askance at her and with a raised eyebrow) mumbled a hello over but pretty much otherwise ignored her. He turned to Sandile who'd since straightened his glasses and who was now holding the ball out for the Miguel guy to grab. But when this Miguel reached for it, Sandile pulled the ball back so that Miguel grabbed thin air, jutted forward, and Sandile then bounced the ball once on Miguel's own head—hard!
"You f—" said the Miguel guy.
Sandile ducked back, his shirt now untucked as he bounced the basketball, waiting for Miguel to come to him. "A little pump-fake there, eh? Nice, nice," the Miguel guy said.
Pump fake—that was a basketball term, wasn't it? She'd heard it once or twice back home but had never really known what it meant.
Miguel was standing with knees bent and arms spread out, ready to block Sandile. Sandile was bouncing the ball, grinning, looking to either side of Miguel, trying to see how he'd get past him. Miguel swayed from side to side, clenching and releasing his fingers.
They were playing basketball now?
Sandile kept bouncing the ball, waiting, waiting, waiting.
Then his eyes caught Jaz's. He looked once more at Miguel. And he stopped.
He stood up, and just like that, the game was over.
"What?" asked Miguel. "You give up just like that?"
"Jaz is from America," said Sandile, pointing over to her. For a moment, she thought she saw Sandile give a mischievous smile, but she was so introverted into herself (and still trying to recover from the earlier embarrassment) that she wasn't really sure what she was seeing anymore. "Technically, I didn't really introduce you two."
Hadn't he? Well, technically, no, that mess earlier had not really been an introduction.
Miguel turned to face her—no smile on his face—and raised his chin, saying, "Hey."
She'd really screwed this one up. That she knew.
She looked at him more closely. He had an extremely dark tan which made his hazel eyes stick out like they were made of gold (or was that just the sun?) His calves were made of rock, a faint shadow forming beneath both of them as they bulged out just below his shorts.
She countered his "Hey" with a "Hello" (again, not sounding any more confident or at ease this time either) but then turned her gaze away. This was not a boy she should be considering anything with, that's for sure. Besides, he looked like one of these too-cool-for-you kinds of guys. She wasn't interested in that.
Sandile and Miguel stood silently for a while, Sandile's eyes flicking over to her every now and then. From Miguel's silence, she assumed that it was maybe time for her to go. But as she picked up her bag, Sandile called out to her, "No, wait, it's fine."
Jaz paused, saying nothing,
"Stay, please." He walked over to where she was and—she wasn't quite sure—it seemed like Miguel rolled his eyes.
Who was this prick?
Sandile sat down and Miguel avoided eye contact with her.
"Elize is not going home for the weekend so I'll be picking her up tomorrow morning," said Miguel to Sandile. "Do you wanna hang out with us?"
"Uh—sure," said Sandile. "How is she?"
"She said she misses me ... a lot."
Oh, brother, what a jerk.
"Right. Right. Well, I'm sure you miss her, too," said Sandile.
And now Jaz was sure Miguel rolled his eyes—just a bit—and then stopped, realizing she was there.
"Uh, yeah, I guess."
Asshole. He's probably been stringing this Elize girl along for weeks and she must be one of those unconfident types that would hang on to him for dear life because ... because—I don't know—of his fucking tan or something!
Jaz suddenly had a keen interest to meet this Elize, and give her some advice.
"So," Miguel continued, "can you make it?"
Now he's asking if Sandile can make it, not if he wants to. She was sure he'd first asked if Sandile wanted to go with them.
"Of course. But"—Sandile hesitated—"I'd like to bring a friend along, if she doesn't mind."
Jaz was looking down. But after the moment of silence that never seemed to end she looked up and saw Sandile looking at her, and Miguel's eyes wide with shock.
"No. Forget it!" said Miguel, turning and walking away.
That was embarrassing. Were they just talking about me like I wasn't even here?
"Wait, wait!" said Sandile, standing up.
Jaz had begun to fidget.
Miguel gestured with his head for
Sandile to walk over somewhere else with him.
What followed was a heated conversation consisting of a lot of gesticulating, pointing at Jaz, Miguel shaking his head, one times "Fuck!" on the part of Miguel, then looking at Jaz again—both of them—and then walking back to her.
Who were these people?!
When they got back to where Jaz was, Miguel piped up. "Um, if you'd like, you could come with us tomorrow," he said to her. "We'll be going over to Northgate Mall for a few drinks."
Northgate Mall—wasn't that a place in Seattle?
Jaz didn't bother to ask; the whole scene had made her uncomfortable. She politely rejected and said she had to get ready for the trip on Monday, all the while realizing she was going to be bored out of her skull because Thandie was going home for the weekend and so Jaz would be all alone for two days. She thought of hanging out with Candy and Long-Legs (Maxine) ... and that didn't seem too exciting either.
She was in Africa, and she felt like nothing more than a cooped up chicken in a friggin pen!
And, then again, she did want to have a word with this Elize.
She changed her mind.
"Actually, yes, I'll go. I'll be your date, Sandile," she said, interweaving her arm in his and smiling.
There was that eye-roll again—very slight—from Miguel.
"Ha ha," said Sandile nervously. "That wasn't exactly what I had meant." And he gently unwrapped his arm from hers.
Severely embarrassing moment number three for today. If Sandile had not intended for her to be his date, then what had he wanted?
"Look, she's going to find out anyway," said Miguel angrily, "so you might as well tell her now. The poor chick is probably freaking out by now." He raised his hand. "Look, I'll see you later. I'll be at Northgate with Elize at about ten whether"—he waved his hand at Jaz—"Jaz comes or not. See ya."
Well, excuuuuuse me!
He walked off, basketball under his arm.
Wow. Jaz definitely needed to meet this Elize girl now. Definitely. No one deserves to be with such a know-it-all like that. And who was he to think that Sandile should go alone with them and be dateless?
Jaz: "Look, Sand—"
"No," he said, "let me explain." He looked around like something dangerous lurked behind the trees. "Let's walk." He gestured over to the field.
As they walked, he explained it to her.
Elize Van Zyl was not Miguel's girlfriend.
Miguel had no girlfriend.
Elize was Sandile's girlfriend—his white girlfriend; his white Afrikaner girlfriend from an area that didn't take lightly to ... "kaffirs."
FIVE
Sandile told her the whole story about him and Elize and, as could be expected, she fell for it (she was such a sucker for a decent romantic story). Tears had tugged at her eyes as he'd explained that Miguel had been pretending to date Elize for the last three months so that he could pick her up from Pretoria (a place about forty-five minutes from Wits, and where Elize went to college) without her family (or, more to the point, her neighborhood) getting suspicious. Miguel spoke fluent Afrikaans, and they figured it would be more "acceptable" for her family to think he was dating her. Miguel had met her father and mother (they had insisted) as well as her brothers.
But her family was not really the problem. For all Sandile could tell, there was nothing really even particularly racist about them (no more than the usual). Sure, they threw around the K-bomb a few times and made some racist jokes. And? Who didn't? Heck, with the number of "Dutchmen" jokes Sandile and Miguel had cracked in their own time, neither really had a leg to stand on, on that count.
Dutchmen? Sandile explained that this was the "impolite" (well, honestly said, "racist") word for the Afrikaner—although the word was in such common use that it was hard for people to even consider it a racist word in itself. Much like the word "porra" for the Portuguese.
The problem, he explained, was really in what had happened in Elize's neighborhood two weeks before they had met. A couple had been murdered there. The papers made a big deal about it, like it had been racially motivated. Had the killings really been motivated by racism? Who the hell knew? Although, once the press had gotten a hold of it, Sandile explained, the intricate details of the facts hadn't really mattered anymore—they played the race card much like they always did when it came to news about South Africa.
Miguel had freaked out. He was the one who'd insisted they keep things quiet until they found out the truth behind the killings. Well, that was three months before. The death of the black guy, his girlfriend and her father still as mysterious as the day the world's news networks played it in all its glory for everyone to see.
"Wait," said Jaz. "There were three people who died?"
"Yes."
"Three months ago?"
"Yes, I'm sure you heard of it. It was all over the news."
It had been all over the news. She remembered it. Jaz had been as convinced as anyone else that it had been, without a doubt, a racially motivated killing. She remembered watching it on TV with her parents, her mother begging for her to reconsider her trip. Then, when those riots broke out three months later—only a week before Jaz was to leave—there were those travel warnings. And, again, a mention of the possibility of that racial killing three months earlier as having caused them.
"I did hear of it, Sandile. But from what I remember, it was a cut-and-dry case. African kid, white girl, both dead. And her father as well."
Sandile looked at her silently for a moment. "It's all in how you word it, isn't it? It may have been racist. Sure. But it also may not have been. They never found the gun which killed the father."
"I see," said Jaz, deep in thought.
"Look, Jaz, the point is, we—actually, Miguel more than anyone—didn't want to take any risks. He and I … well, we go back. And he just wants me to be OK."
Sandile explained how, because of that incident in Elize's neighborhood, all three of them were careful about this—more than careful. They never texted each other, never emailed, just in case one of her brothers saw the messages (they often picked up her phone and looked at it). Who knew who they'd speak to?
Sandile had not planned to see Elize this weekend. It had been a last minute thing, which is why Miguel had come over to tell him. They were so over the top cautious that Miguel would not even text this stuff over to Sandile (lest her brothers got hold of his phone as well). Sandile had suggested getting another phone or just deleting the messages after he sent them—but Miguel was a bit of a paranoid guy on the subject, so he preferred to give the messages personally.
When Miguel had asked Sandile if he'd "like to join them," that had been code for "Elize wants to know if you're free." They'd been doing it for so long that they didn't even bother having private conversations about it anymore, Jaz having been just some bystander listening to two guys talking about a girl.
The sheer tangle of lies that were involved in keeping this thing afloat made Jaz's head reel, unable to grasp onto one single untruth above any other, all of them sort of meshing into one another like glue and confusing her.
"You'll only be able to carry this lie on for so long. You know that, don't you?" she said.
He shrugged half-heartedly. "Yeah. None of us really wanna think about that now, actually. The truth is, things have been very tense where she lives. A few AWB flags have gone up since that day—oh, that's a right-wing political group down here. There's been a lot of talk of …. Well, right now is just not a good time."
"I see."
Another moment of silence.
As she considered it all, none of it still answered why Sandile had suddenly asked her if she'd like to come along. If she wasn't going to be his date then—
And then it hit her.
"Oh, no. Oh, no! You're setting me up on a date!" she said, turning to walk away.
"Jaz! Wait!"
Jaz felt now like the girl she'd seen earlier on the grass rejecting her boyfriend's kiss.
"Lo
ok. You're right, there was a third reason I spoke to you today," he said embarrassedly.
Jaz turned and crossed her arms, leaned back on one leg and cocked an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation.
"Well …" he said.
"M-hmm?"
"Thandie suggested it. She thought that maybe you … and Miguel …."
And there Jaz began to smile. She'd hardly known this girl ten hours and there she was, setting her up with … some guy! Well, what are best friends for?
"So that's why you came and spoke to me?"
"Well, that and the interview, of course."
"Of course."
"Of … course," said Sandile, sticking to his story.
"But you're wrong, I don't see it as the 'third' reason. I see it as the first—that whole made-up thing about 'being friends'?"
Sandile gave a warm smile. "No, I really had meant that—so that was the first and main reason. The least you could expect would be for all of us to become friends—Miguel included."
Jaz shook her head, trying to be upset but instead smiling from ear to ear in a feeling of either embarrassment or coyness. Miguel seemed like a bit of a rough diamond to her.
"Look, you would be doing me a personal favor," he finally pleaded.
Hmmmm. "Can I think about it?" she asked.
"Sure."
Sandile asked her to tell no one. Miguel would pick Elize up from Pretoria and then drive her up to Northgate (there really was a Northgate Mall in Johannesburg, just like in Seattle), which was far enough from anyone they knew so that Elize and Sandile could spend some time together. Usually Miguel just hung around and went to a movie for a few hours and then he took her back. That was the drill. And usually only twice a month. This weekend had been a surprise. Elize must've wanted to see Sandile before he left for the camp and so had arranged not to go home for the weekend.