by Raven, R. D.
"Would you ever … consider leaving?"
"You haven't seen Blood Diamond, have you?"
"Of course I have!" She didn't tell him that she'd seen every DiCaprio movie ever made.
"Ahh, Leo, huh?"
She blushed.
"Well, you heard what they said. You never leave Africa once you've lived in it—something like that. Your heart will also never leave it—you wait and see."
He had a point about her heart. But it wouldn't be Africa that it would be caught in when she left.
"Miguel?"
"Uh-oh, this sounds serious."
It was serious—well, only a little. And she couldn't believe she was going to just go out and say it. But it was true that she would go in December, and she'd already lost so much time with him by beating around the bush (or—being in South Africa—the bushveld). She couldn't lose any more time. And if they declared their feelings for each other, surely they'd find a way.
Isn't that how it always went, in all those stories she'd read and those movies she'd seen?
"Miguel, I—I think I might be … falling … for you." She looked away, her heart suddenly racing like galloping horses. She couldn't believe she'd just laid herself bare like that!
There was silence. "You sure that's not the wine talking?" he joked.
Jaz fidgeted with her napkin at her lap, and shook her head. Why had he not said something else yet? She'd pushed it too far. She'd said something she shouldn't have.
Stupid!
"Well, consider yourself lucky," he finally uttered. "Because I'm not falling for you at all. I fell down the kloof weeks ago, banged my head on the rocks, and I'm riding down the gushing waters just trying to hold onto something that will explain what I've been feeling for you ever since then."
Jaz smiled, her skin flushing with the heat of an emotion that had suddenly swept over her but which she couldn't yet name.
"In other words, Jaz, I fell for you a long time ago."
She slid her hand over to meet his on the table.
Words tried to form on her lips that she so desperately wanted to say to him, since that day on the bus; but she would not say them now.
Not yet.
After dinner they walked to a place called Catz Pyjamas (basically, a bar which served food) which stayed open all night. Jaz couldn't believe how busy it was at ten p.m.—and on a weeknight! There must've been forty tables (including the ones on the terrace) and all of them were taken. Glass doors that were able to slide all the way open or closed led out into that terrace. Finally, after skipping an opening outside because Jaz was too cold, a table freed up inside.
Miguel had told her earlier that Melville was one of those (as he'd put it) "artsy-fartsy" kinds of areas where it wasn't unusual to catch a whiff of zol (marijuana) in the air. Not knowing what that smelled like, Jaz had not really been able to tell if anyone had been smoking it on their way there.
Catz Pyjamas was a melting pot of clothing styles and characters—everything from fishnet stockings and Goth to orange hair and nose rings, even things as unexciting as polo shirts and slacks. You couldn't categorize the people in this place at all—about the only thing they all had in common was that none of them seemed to want to go home.
As if the place wasn't already loud enough with all the talking, at around eleven p.m. a live band arrived and started playing something between trippy house, jazz and rock ballads. Jaz had had three glasses of wine at dinner and, earlier, had felt a little tipsy, but now she was just starting to feel tired—which irritated her because she didn't want to go to sleep. She forced her eyes open as the music played but soon it proved too much. She let her head fall on Miguel's shoulder, finally giving in to the weight of her eyelids. She sat like that awhile, aware only of her head moving in sync to his breathing.
Whether he'd planned it, or whether it simply occurred, it didn't matter, because before Jaz knew it—her mouth tasting of cotton and her eyes bleary from sleep—Miguel's index finger was suddenly underneath her chin, raising her head up. And when she finally opened her eyes, his lips were almost to hers, his eyes closing as he moved in forward.
Jaz's breath caught.
She felt her skin go hot despite the drop in temperature and the gust of wind from the open terrace doors. She wiped her palms on her dress and brought them up to Miguel's cheeks, moving into him, unable to get to him soon enough.
Their lips met.
All sound stopped.
For a moment, Jaz was paralyzed, her hands hanging motionless by his cheeks as his lips caressed hers. Then his hands came up to meet hers and he brought them down to her lap and held them. It was as if she was nothing but an awe-struck bystander, unable to fully participate, riveted by his touch.
But then she did participate. She clasped at his jacket and pulled him into her and breathed in his air and kissed him back.
The room disappeared. Jaz pulled herself closer and closer and closer and tugged at his jacket to bring him toward her. He did the same, his hands now all through her hair and hers through his. At one point she heard a waitress come by and ask if they wanted anything else. She saw from the periphery of her vision as her eyes briefly fluttered open that Miguel was waving the mini-skirted blonde away.
I could fall in love with someone who kisses like this.
Eventually—her lungs still needing his air but her body now warm from his touch—Miguel pulled away while her lips still lingered, her eyes closed, waiting for him to continue. Then he pecked her once or twice more on the nose, and whispered, "That. Was. Fucking. Ahwsumm."
Jaz bit her bottom lip and nodded, still tasting him.
And then he kissed her again, easing his hand across her waist and then to her thigh.
But, ultimately, that's as far as he went, finally moving away from her, leaving her wanting more.
She eased her head onto his chest as he sat with his legs stretched now, watching the band. She closed her eyes, and let the music take her away.
A thought of December approaching pierced her heart without warning. Her hand shot over to Miguel's, clasping it, wanting so desperately to tell him that he meant the world to her. But Miguel spoke first.
"I hope you never leave," he said.
Jaz could not answer. But now she was awake. Wide awake—with fear.
PART II
THIRTEEN
It was September 6th, and time for Spring Break (the seasons being all in reverse in South Africa), but not the kind of Spring Break that Jaz had come to know in the States. This was a lot milder. Maybe it was only because she had decided to spend it with Sandile, Elize and Miguel, and not with a mass of drunken students partying it up at frat and house parties. Or, maybe, that's just the way Spring Breaks were down here: relatively mild.
Whether she did it out of love for Miguel or for Sandile or even for Elize; or whether it was simply because they were young and naïve and Jaz believed that, in the end, all would turn out OK; or whether it had been just like the slang and the South African words which had now become a part of her very own language, subsumed into it as if the two had never been anything but combined; whatever it was, Jaz had soon found herself roped into the lie that was keeping Sandile and Elize's relationship alive.
Maybe, she thought, it had simply been because she, herself, was also in love. Deeply, deeply in love. And the thought of not being with Miguel had come to cause her even physical pain—the idea of it being so abhorrent to her. That was likely the real reason that she had agreed to meet Elize's parents a week earlier and gain their trust, so that Jaz could lie to them and say she and Elize were headed out to Durban for Spring Break, alone.
Her parents agreed.
The four of them had cooked up a story of how Elize and Jaz had met on some trip or some party or whatever (they had to keep reminding themselves of the facts) and now Elize had been given the OK to go away with Jaz (her parents would never have approved her going away with a boy). As if Fate itself had willed it, Elize now also had
her own car, so that had worked in their favor. Elize told her parents that she and Jaz had booked a place in Durban so that they could visit the beach. Miguel was (according to the tale) in Portugal.
They mentioned nothing about Mozambique. The story was already elaborate enough. As far as Elize's parents were concerned, Elize and Jaz would spend ten days in Durban, and then go back home.
In retrospect, they should've planned it better—much better. But in the end, did any of that really matter?
As for Thandie, she'd been too smart to buy any of the bullshit, especially after they'd started berthing all the IHRE students at the International House while they undertook renovations at their usual dorms (a point of minor upset after Thandie discovered that, even though she'd be staying at the International House, she would still have to share a room with another local because of space constraints), and especially since Jaz and Miguel had started (officially) dating. That meant that Thandie was now around her all the time, constantly pressing her for details. So Jaz had simply cracked. After some serious negotiation with Sandile, she got his agreement to tell her. Is that all? Thandie had said. Well if the neighborhood doesn't accept them then fuck the neighborhood! For all of Thandie's poetry, she also just had a way of saying things succinctly and to the point.
What had bothered Jaz, however, was that, at the end of the day, Elize's parents seemed like very kind people actually. Maybe it was because Jaz was American that Elize's father had never once used the K-bomb in front of her. Or, maybe, it was just that they had moved on.
People could change, couldn't they?
Or had there been nothing wrong with them in the first place, the only supposed threats having been concocted by Miguel's (and maybe even Sandile's) own preconceived ideas?
All of it was too much for Jaz to ponder. The burden of it all, of reality seeping in to what otherwise should've been just a simple tale of two people in love with each other, had begun to weigh down on her like a heavy storm. She told Miguel and Sandile that people could change. That, even after years of prejudice, that their ideas could become different. Miguel and Sandile had simply raised their eyebrows and said, No fucking ways, china!
It angered her.
The internal strife of the country—and the emotional charge attendant upon it—had begun to seep into Jaz's own aura. She had begun to feel the hate and fear and tensions of things that, before, had been nothing more than comments by strangers or "foreigners."
But, to her, the South Africans were no longer foreigners.
Everyone else was.
She had started to feel the unease within the class discussions about things that, before, she would've dealt with intellectually. Now, however, she sensed things more emotionally. At one point, she even had the faintest desire to lay into Stefan simply because of the history of his people.
Why? Why had she wanted to do that? Was she becoming racist herself—even if that racism was not aimed at a person's color, but at their culture? Did she now hate all Germans and Afrikaners for what a minority amongst their group had done in the past? Because of the very fact of where she now lived, was she starting to sense and feel as the people in her immediate environment felt? Even to the point of illogicalness?
It was as Thandie had once told her: Girl, people can be as intellectual as they want about racism, sexism, human rights. The problem is that these are not intellectual subjects; they're emotional ones.
Someone had once told her that the way to really get to know a place is to live in it. Everywhere you go will always look quaint and pleasant and beautiful and picturesque when you vacation there. But when you live there, it's a totally different cricket game.
And Jaz was feeling more and more South African. It wasn't because her boyfriend (she still loved hearing the word) was South African or because she now liked the taste of Nik Naks chips or even of biltong (which she'd learned quickly should never be referred to as beef jerky—that was almost as bad as telling a South African his accent sounded British). It wasn't because she had learned that a china was a dude and an oke was just some guy (even though, when she said it, it still sounded like she was talking about a tree). It was none of these things.
The land had infected her.
And whether it had been a disease or an inoculation, it was now a part of her, and she a part of it. Inextricable, both ways.
Both Pretoria and Wits University had their Spring Breaks at the same time. Elize drove the car up to Miguel's house on the Friday afternoon after school had ended. Sandile was already waiting for her there, as were Jaz and Miguel. She parked the car in their garage and Miguel's dad was briefed on what to say to anyone calling for him (that is, that Miguel was in Portugal). At least one part of the story was true: Elize had told her parents they'd be spending the night before leaving at Miguel's place because it was closer.
"It's a new South Africa, son. Some people just need to learn to live with it," said Miguel's dad. Miguel frowned and shook his head. He knew that as well as any of the others did.
They left early the next morning, before the sunrise. Jaz was not much of a morning person but at least she got to take a warm shower. She milked it, as did Elize in the second bathroom, and, in total, the girls delayed their departure time by at least thirty minutes. It could have been worse, thought Jaz.
Sandile seemed a little distant that morning, clutching his phone as if the devil himself had called.
"What's up, boet?" asked Miguel who was at the wheel.
Sandile merely shook his head, and Miguel said nothing.
After a few moments: "It's not that fucking Tsepho again, is it?" asked Miguel.
Tsepho. Where had she heard that name? Right, the guy with the gun that day Sandile picked her up to go to Northgate Mall.
"No, just forget it, boet. Let's have a good time, OK?" Sandile turned in his seat and held Elize's hand briefly. When Jaz looked at Elize, her mind also seemed to be elsewhere.
On the way, Jaz flicked through two collections of CDs Miguel had there. It soon became clear that one collection belonged to Sandile, the other to Miguel.
"What about Mafi … kizolo?" said Jaz, struggling to pronounce the name.
Sandile: "Yes!"
Miguel: "Hell no!"
Elize: "I'm starting to like kwaito. Put it on."
Miguel: "No fucking ways!"
"OK, enough!" Jaz cut in. "What about L.O.V.E. by Revolu—"
"Yes!" said Sandile, followed by a similar argument of widely varying views and personal insults all aimed at each other's musical tastes.
"God, I don't know how you two ever stay friends," said Jaz.
"There is something they both like," said Elize.
Jaz looked at Miguel. She was positive that his cheeks had rouged. "Miguel?" she asked.
He shrugged, acting innocent. Sandile was equally quiet.
Jaz: "And?"
"Go on, Miguel. Tell her!" urged Sandile.
Miguel cleared his throat. "Sandile has been ragging me about something completely stoopid"—he rolled his eyes in the rear-view at Sandile. "It's totally idiotic. It's—Melody Gardot. We both Melody Gardot's genre."
Jaz tried to process the information. What was so funny about that? She was even slightly disappointed, having hoped for some diaphragm-shaking laughter at an incredibly climactic joke.
"I see," she said. "And where is that CD?"
Miguel paused, the sudden silence unnerving. "In my CD case," he said.
Jaz searched and looked but found nothing—even after going through all of them twice.
"Where?" She was frustrated now.
"Miguel?" said Sandile.
Miguel cleared his throat. "It's the one labeled, Best of Jazz."
More silence. Only when Jaz was putting the CD in did it cross her mind what kinds of idiotic boy-jokes they'd probably made because of that CD. "Best of Jaz?" she said.
Sandile snickered.
"I don't even want to know the kinds of pathetic jokes you guys made ab
out that!" she said, her cheeks now feeling warm.
"I told you it was stupid," said Miguel. "Besides, it's all modern stuff. And not all of it is jazz: Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, Joss Stone, Katie Melua—that kind of stuff."
"Not all of it is jazz, but all of them are attractive women," said Jaz, smiling at Miguel.
He blushed even more.
They stopped at Harrismith for some food and gas and already Jaz's lungs had started to feel clearer, the mountainous area around her exuding an aura of peace and calm that she had needed ever since her dinner at Elize's place where her tension had been thick as bread and her fear as palpable as the sweat currently running down her brow.
"It's hot!" she said, fanning her shirt.
"I love your accent," said Miguel, grabbing her hand and walking over to the diner.
Sandile and Elize followed behind them and Jaz noted some of the looks they got—or maybe she was just imagining it. All three of them—Elize, Miguel and Sandile—seemed a little tense. They all just needed to fucking relax. This was supposed to be a vacation, wasn't it?
After eating a burger (very small, but very delicious) at the "Wimpy" diner (they also ragged Jaz constantly for always referring to it as a "diner"), Jaz wolfed down a strawberry milkshake and they headed back on the road.
A few hours later, they arrived in Umhlanga Rocks, thereby totally confusing Jaz who had, all this time, assumed they were going to a place called "Durban." Apparently, whereas everyone called Durban and the surrounding areas simply "Durban" (much like every suburb around Johannesburg was indiscriminately called "Johannesburg"), they weren't actually going into Durban proper, but to this other place, "Umhlanga Rocks" (which Jaz gave up trying to pronounce—although it sounded something like oomshlahnga).
The one thing she noticed as they arrived—even when they were on the freeway—was that the area was lush like the Amazon. And when she got out of the car, the humidity of the air hit her like a blanket, covering her entire body with a sheen of thick sweat that she knew she would probably never get rid of until they returned to Johannesburg. It was like sitting in a hot-box, the air so thick she could feel it washing down her throat as she breathed.