by Raven, R. D.
God!
"Honey, I'm just gonna go say hello to Miguel," said Jaz, desperate for air.
"Oooh, you go girl!" replied Thandie, and then turned to a friend of hers behind them and started chatting it up in a language Jaz didn't understand but which she knew was not Afrikaans (Elize's language) but one of the other African languages.
Miguel's eyes were closed and he had white earphones in his ears, holding an iPod Touch languidly in his right hand, looking like it was about to fall at any moment. "Hey," said Jaz, not worried about waking him (actually, it's exactly what she'd wanted).
When he opened his eyes, he smiled. "Hey! Nice to see you!"
Was it? Then why had he been so offish when he got in?
"I was so fucking tired this morning. I mean, who in their right minds leaves for Rustenburg at five in the morning? It's not like it's that far away, you know?" he said.
He had a point. "Right."
"I brought something for you." He got up and pulled his bag out from above, then dug inside it. It was very badly packed, and no doubt his clothes would all be creased by now. "Here," he said, jutting his Kindle over to her, "just in case you can't sleep at night. Oh, and I got some of those books from those authors you said you liked, just in case the adventure stuff on there bores you."
She almost fucking cried. The whole thing had just been too much. This boy who'd been through so much—suffered so greatly—had taken the time to load up some friggin romance novels for her to read in case she got bored?
She hugged him. She threw her arms around his friggin neck and squeezed him so hard and didn't let go because a goddamn tear (yeah, she had no control over it) broke through her left eye in the meantime, so she couldn't let go because if she did she'd look like an idiot. And she didn't know if she was crying because of what he'd given her or because of what Thandie had told her or simply because she'd wanted to ever since she'd heard that horrible story about Elize's neighborhood and those poor people who'd been killed.
All she knew is that she'd probably just embarrassed herself.
In front of Miguel.
Again.
And that's when the cheers started, way up from the back where Thandie was sitting. "Ayayayayayayayay!" she said, and the rest of the African girls started chanting and then the white girls joined in—all for this supposed couple (which wasn't a couple). They were cheering and edging them on and friggin celebrating.
Shit. Now she was really embarrassed. Even Candy and Maxine were excited, rousing from their slumber and immediately taking photos with their iPhones or whatever-phones.
She sniffled. "I'm sorry," she whispered in Miguel's ear, glad that it had only been one tear and not more that had broken through. "Disease of the romance-reader, I guess." Damn, that was a stupid thing to say! Now he'll really think I'm desperate!
"Nah, it's OK," he said, and she noted that he was blushing, the tanned skin on his cheeks now a leathery red. "Hey, why don't you sit down here with us?" he said. "You and Thandie?"
Sandile started shaking his head and mouthing the words, No no no, broe. No! It had suddenly become clear why they had sat so far down. Sandile was obviously not in the mood to suffer Thandie's advances with no explanation better than I'm just not interested. Thandie didn't know about Elize, after all.
So, the impish side of her called Thandie over to come and sit with them.
"Ach, white women," said Sandile, turning his head to the window and pretending to sleep.
Jaz wanted to retort and say, Well, you'd better get used to this white woman, because she plans on getting very close to your best friend, but realized she was probably being presumptuous.
Thandie came over and was more excited about the Kindle (not owning one herself) than Jaz had been. She insisted on having Jaz show her how it worked and it took long enough that Miguel soon dozed off again. Now, being the only one without anything to do (Sandile was still pretending to be asleep), Jaz got Thandie's agreement that they could read together. But Thandie soon got frustrated because she was a much faster reader than Jaz—much faster—and also had to look up less words.
"How do you know so many words?" Jaz asked.
"You've never seen The Great Debaters, with Denzel Washington?" asked Thandie, incredulous.
Denzel. Now he was a babe. Hmmmm. But she hadn't seen the film. "No. Should I have?"
"Ach"—it was that throat clearing sound again, showing irritation—"it's only one of the greatest movies ever made. It's based on a true story about an African-American debating team. Their teacher explained to them that there was a revolution going on at the time, and the revolution was being led by poets."
Jaz was not entirely certain she was getting the point, so she simply said, "I see."
"The point is, if you don't know enough words, how can you ever learn anything? Or, more importantly, how could you ever teach anything? I mean, for example, poverty is not just a 'bad thing,' it is an 'abominable catastrophe' or the 'famished mouth of every gun any victim of crime has ever looked into.' See the difference?"
Wow. Jaz had just learned something.
Sadly, this only had the opposite effect on Thandie's potential entertainment via the Kindle, because Jaz now found herself looking up a lot more words than before, thereby slowing Thandie's reading enjoyment down to a screeching halt.
Jaz also soon learned that Thandie spoke five languages: Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Afrikaans and English. Apparently, this was not even such a jaw-dropping fact but a pretty average number for many black South Africans.
Jaz really wished she had paid more attention in French (or in English for that matter).
But Thandie had struck a nerve. Jaz gave her the Kindle and faded into thought.
Words. Words could change the world. Strung together in the right arrangements and hung up for everyone to see they could bring about entire revolutions. They could incite people to action, lull them to inaction, or simply infuse them with a hope and sense of dignity that they had for so long lost. She thought of MLK, Mandela, JFK, Lincoln, George Washington's Inaugural Address and Eisenhower's Chance for Peace. She thought of Mark Twain's Votes for Women and Eleanor Roosevelt with the Adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights.
She thought of Hitler.
Words. They were powerful, and dangerous. Constructive, and capable of an obliteration more deadly than any atom bomb ever launched. Had it not been words that had started the First World War—or the Second? Wouldn't an order to attack be required before an attack could be made?
Jaz looked over at Miguel, still sleeping, a rivulet of drool falling from his lip and onto his shirt. She got up instinctively and wiped it off with her shirt. As she did it, she thought of a few words for him: Kind, gentle, sexy, mysterious.
Lonely.
Afraid.
Hurt.
And she thought of one more word, one that described how she was beginning to feel about him.
Could it really be?
NINE
It was that afternoon (after what Miguel termed "the most roundabout of roundabout trips to Rustenburg ever"), when they finally arrived at Camp Inkululeko (the Zulu and Xhosa word for Freedom) that Jaz felt she had fully and truly arrived in Africa.
She faced the landscape spreading behind the road. There was nothing but hills and land, rolling and tumbling and stretching forward into a curved horizon, not a smoking chimney in sight, not a single sound of the city to be heard. She noted the red sand on the main road and remembered a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond, that's right) where they'd said something about the sand being red from all the blood that had been spilled. Until now, she'd always thought that was simply something Hollywood had said to make the movie sound cooler.
As they stepped off the bus, a horde of children wearing clothing in various states of disarray swarmed over to them, shouting in jubilation and tugging at the students' legs. Stefan, the German guy, was damn near knocked off his feet, keeping his balance just barely while trying to
maintain a knapsack on his right shoulder. Maxine held onto his arm (so Jaz figured they must've started dating meanwhile).
One child in particular—a tiny girl of maybe six or seven years old, in a white shirt with holes, but a carrying a smile that would melt lead—clung to Jaz's leg and stared up at her. Jaz bent down and said hello. The girl giggled, then looked up, broad-smiled and wide-eyed, at Thandie, then at Jaz while chewing on her nail, and then she ran off again.
Their professor, Mr. Patel, explained that the children were part of a local school and many of them lived around the area. The next day, the IHRE students would be waking up early in the morning to walk to school with them to get a feel for what it was like to live in this area.
A hand on the small of her back made her heart speed up and her skin warm. It was Miguel's. He smiled when she looked at him and then turned her toward the camp. In the center of it was a nondescript building of whitewashed walls and a thatched roof. On her left, however, something that she would thereafter never forget, caught her eye.
Two baby cats that looked like leopards sat behind a chain-link fence looking at her, their eyes never leaving her as she walked with Miguel by her side toward them. Behind the baby cats, in the distance, and standing with its side to her but looking at her directly, was an older, sleeker animal, also of the same family—probably the mother.
"Is that a leopard?" asked Jaz.
"No, this is a cheetah. Look"—he took her closer to the fencing and they knelt down next to the little ones—"see the black tear marks running down their eyes and on the sides of their noses? That's what gives it away. Leopards don't have that. These are cheetahs, the fastest land animals on earth, running up to 110 kilometers an hour in a chase."
Hadn't she read something about this in one of her many books? Then again, many times Jaz would read something only to find the entire thing gone from her memory only a few weeks later (sometimes even hours). Most notably non-fiction books (although Shakespeare had also been a problem—all she could remember about that was "wherefore art thou").
"And here I thought I knew all there was to know about this place from all those books I read. How fast is that in miles?" she asked.
Miguel shrugged, and thought for a second. "Fucking fast!"
She laughed.
"It's just a little below the maximum speed allowed on a South African highway. No idea what it is in miles."
Jaz was fascinated, and moved to put her finger in the fencing so she could touch the adorable little guys.
"Whoa!" said Miguel, clutching her fingers in his. "Firstly, that thing will probably bite you if you stick your finger in there. And secondly, look." He pointed to a sign. ELECTRIC FENCING.
Yikes.
"I'm not sure if the electric fencing is for the animals, or to prevent dumb Americans from getting their fingers eaten off."
"Hey!" This time, when she hit him, it was not flirting. She whacked him, hard. And she could tell by his grimace that he'd felt it. But she'd felt it too, her wrist now aching like mad. "There's more where that came from if you don't watch it!" she said to him, pointing at him with the index finger of the hand she hadn't hit him with (the other being too sore to hold up).
Miguel raised his hands in defense, but with a smirk on his face. "Sorry," he muttered.
"You'd better be!" And now she was flirting ... but only a little.
The camp host's name was Johan (pronounced Yohahn). He was a tall man with blue eyes and short hair. From his accent, she could tell he was Afrikaans (he sounded a bit like Elize). He showed the students to their rooms: a series of thatched-roof chalets which housed six each. (Well, they called them chalets although Jaz realized that the South African idea of a chalet was not the same as the US one—they were basically large rooms). Each one had a shower, but he warned everyone that the water did tend to get cold after a certain number of showers.
Maxine asked, "How many?"
Johan laughed and said, "You'll find out in the morning. You know what they say, the early bird gets the hot shower."
A lame joke, but Maxine's roll of the eyes made Jaz give out a laugh—as well as Miguel, although he had been a little more diplomatic about it, sheltering his chuckle by turning around quickly.
They were allowed to pick their own roommates so Jaz picked Thandie, Candy and Maxine. Another girl, Nita Kapur, was the last to form part of their group. There being seventeen girls in total, it meant they'd have an extra bed (and more chances of a hot shower). Nita had the most incredibly straight, black hair that Jaz had ever seen, reaching down to just below her waist, not a strand out of place, and glistening in the sun. Her body was small and petite and she was well-spoken—not arrogant but sounding very intelligent with a calm, poised air about her; and an inviting smile. Her eyes were deep and dark. Normally Jaz felt threatened by people that looked like her, and suddenly she got the idea that maybe she wasn't threatened by a look at all, but by an attitude—an attitude which Nita didn't have.
Sandile and Miguel liked Stefan's accent so they picked him. Then there was a British guy with matted black hair and glasses that nobody had really spoken to which ended up in their group as well. An African guy who Jaz didn't know the name of finished up the guys' room because there were only eleven boys in total, so they also had an extra bed.
They were all given thirty minutes to unpack and then they'd have a class on Human Rights and the Media in that nondescript room in the middle of the camp.
When Jaz walked into their room, she heaved in a deep whiff of the thatched-roof scent that permeated it, held it in, and then exhaled. "Wow," she said. Maxine had been more interested in the quality of the beds (three bunks) and Candy had not particularly noticed the earthen aroma in their room either.
"Nice, isn't it?" said Thandie.
And it was; it was indeed "nice." It was more than nice. It was .... She took another deep whiff of it.
Wow!
The floor was tiled with an interesting slate-looking substance which she couldn't name. Maxine said the beds were too hard but when Jaz felt one she figured it was fine. It was no luxury bed, but she didn't think she'd get back pain from it. Candy was afraid of heights so she chose one of the bottom bunks. Maxine was afraid of bugs so she took the top. Thandie didn't particularly mind, and neither did Nita, so Jaz took the top bunk, thinking about how she would be looking up at that tapering roof that evening before going to bed and wondering if she would ever fall asleep, wanting to soak in every minute detail of every perception of the upcoming ten days.
Maxine ran to the bathroom and complained about the lack of cupboard space, then quickly took up most of it with her make-up and accessories. The bathroom was actually quite elegant, having a brass faucet and beige vessel sink made of stone that looked like it belonged in a five-star hotel.
It crossed Jaz's mind that five girls in one room might mean she'd have to get up two hours earlier to be ready on time. But Jaz didn't care about any of that. For her, there was only that aroma—that sweet, dusty aroma of thatch. She couldn't get enough of it.
Later they went to their first class in the meeting hall at the center of the camp. The interior was equally as nondescript as the exterior with nothing but a few plastic chairs to sit on (which hurt Jaz's ass), some desks, and a whiteboard upfront.
The class had been pretty boring for the most part and Jaz's mind had drifted toward the world outside when what seemed like an altercation perked up her interest. When she looked up, she saw it was the African guy who'd taken the fifth bed at Miguel's room, arguing with Stefan. It seemed that Stefan was being singled out as a Nazi because he was German.
Jaz wriggled uncomfortably in her seat.
It only took a few seconds for a bunch of other guys to gang up on Stefan, the latter participants seeming even less informed than the first, but no less willing to froth at the mouth with insults. Mr. Patel tried to calm everyone down but it all got quickly out of hand. One of the guys stood up and threatened Stefan physical
ly. Finally, Stefan also stood (after Maxine so eloquently shouted out, "You guys are so fucking stoopid!") He was not particularly upset, but said that putting all Germans in a category because of one lunatic (who was actually Austrian, he also pointed out) was no different than what that same lunatic had done to the Jews before and during the Second World War.
Some things were said in a language Jaz didn't understand and she began to wonder why exactly some of these people had chosen to do this course if they didn't seem too interested in the human rights of others, but only of their own. And that's exactly what it felt like. It's as if some of them had missed the boat on the "human" part of "human rights." It's not "German Rights" or "African Rights" or anything like that—but the rights of all.
She made a note (she'd started carrying a notebook) to mention that to someone, somewhere, at some stage.
Stefan was surprisingly composed in his speech, fielding the insults and attacks like he'd heard them all his life, although Maxine (who was sitting at a desk next to him) had started to pout and folded her arms and was now looking out into the grass outside.
Miguel and Sandile, on the other hand, sat casually (if not boredly) observing the fray as if they were looking at a bunch of animals in a zoo, Sandile chewing on a pencil and Miguel leaning back in his chair. When Miguel saw her, he lifted his eyebrows and raised his palms up in the air as if to say, What the fuck?
Things lightened up when an African girl (who'd clearly had enough of the babbling from her local compatriots) stood up and angrily shouted something to the guy who'd started all the taunting. When the guy had the audacity to question her, five other African girls stood up like some gang and suppressed his voice like howling hyenas. Thandie also joined in.
Jaz snickered. She liked the idea of strong women putting an idiotic man in his place.
The perpetrator quickly sat down, murmuring what were probably sulking insults from underneath his breath.