by Raven, R. D.
The thought, was of an emotion.
Just like that, the idea popped into his mind like the light spray of salty water from a wave crashing against the rocks. And it wasn't the kind of emotion where the boy sees the girl in a crowd full of faces and she looks at him with a glint in her eye that could only mean she would be forever and ever the one for him and he'd run through the crowds and wrestle bulls and give his left arm in exchange for a night with her and then they would both take a poisonous drink and die together but it was all meant to be anyway so that was the moral of the story.
No.
It was Jaz.
And him.
On a balcony.
Now.
This, was real.
Whatever he did now, he knew, would affect things between them forever. And the emotion he had started to think about did include a sort of forever in it, a forever that, he could understand, would maybe not be entirely comfortable, but which would contain moments just like this one. Moments where he would be standing in front of her, on a balcony, and the next words he would utter would either cut her, or warm her.
He looked inside the room. As the curtain billowed, furnishing him a brief glance within, he saw that Elize had since fallen into Sandile's lap, resting her head against his collarbone. Sandile was running his fingers down her hair, looking at nothing.
This is what it was all about, wasn't it?
Miguel closed the sliding door a bit so they'd have more privacy.
"Jaz," he said, "there's something I wanted to … tell you. Actually, I wanted to tell you in different circumstances than these but … well … I can't stop thinking about it anymore."
Jaz still had her arms folded and her lips were so tightly pressed that he imagined he'd have to pry them open with a crowbar.
She said nothing, waiting.
"Jaz … I love you."
Somehow, when he said it, it didn't sound nearly as good as when he'd thought it, like the words had just fallen out like stones down a kloof.
A pause.
"You what?"
That was not the reaction he'd expected.
She exhaled. "An interesting time to tell me," she finally said, a mixture of anger and surprise in her voice.
Miguel cleared his throat. It had been a very interesting time indeed. And now Miguel felt a little foolish, wishing he had a bottle of wine or champagne next to him to pull out; wishing he had chosen a different moment, but he had none of these things. "I know, the moment sucks," he said. "But I do. And there's something I want you to understand. I love you with all my heart, but things are ... different down here. People die down here. We all lose our naivety early. I lost mine—"
Jaz's eyes burst with indignation. "You're a fucking asshole, you know that? Is that why you told me—to soften me up before you broke it to me that I'm naïve?" She was talking quietly now, occasionally looking inside the room. "Are you trying to tell me that I am naïve and that you're not? You're so full of yourself." She turned to face the ocean, her elbows on the railing.
"No, that's not what I meant." And it wasn't. He'd meant only that ... well ... she hadn't seen the depths to which human passions could take someone. She hadn't seen the capability of human beings to act worse than the lowest of animals. Because even a lion kills only to eat. Humans, it seemed to him, killed for pleasure.
And what he had wanted to say was that ... deep down ... he was just fucking shitting himself for what could happen to Sandile.
Or to her.
"Then what did you mean?" she asked.
"I meant .... You know what? You're right. That was bullshit what I said—I mean, the second thing I said—not … the thing about … you know … love. That wasn't"—Christ, he sounded like a babbling monkey—"um, bullshit."
She looked up at him, confused. "What?"
"Jaz, all I know is, I love you. And I love Sandile. And ...." His eyes were downcast. And he went quiet. He'd screwed this one up royally, that he knew. So he did the only thing he knew to do. He turned to face the ocean with her, resting his own arms on the railing, and waited.
In silence.
After a long while, nothing to break the quiet but the sound of the wind and ocean in their ears, Jaz peeked at him sidelong.
Was she smiling?
She was. It was a small one, but an unmistakable smile.
A twitch broke on his lip.
And then she hit him.
"Ow!" Miguel fell over slightly and clutched his shoulder. "Man!"
She was trying to pretend she was angry, this much he could tell, but she was also shaking her wrist in pain. Poor girl, she really had no idea how to throw a decent punch.
"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" he asked her.
"No!" She opened her eyes widely. "But did you really mean what you said? I mean—the second thing—you know—about … love."
She sounded as bad as he did now.
"Yeah, I did," he whispered. "I've loved you since—" A lump formed in his throat. He cleared it. "Well, it's been a while, let's just put it like that."
"I would've expected the statement to have come with a bottle of wine, or maybe after a night of … you know."
"Yeah. Full of surprises this trip, isn't it? This wasn't how I had planned—"
She put her finger to his lips, then placed her hands around his biceps and rose up on her toes to kiss him.
After they kissed, he held her, watching as the last puddles of red light fell behind the ocean, bringing the entire zone into a gray darkness.
"I love you, too," she finally said.
And that's all he had wanted to hear.
"We've discussed it," said Sandile as Miguel and Jaz walked back in. "We're going to run away. Screw everyone. It's not their business. It's ours."
Jaz saw the look of apprehension on Elize's face. She was not ready to face the world on her own. Sandile was the strong one, not she. She would end up pulling him down in the long run. And what of their education? What about college?
The idea seemed like a bad one all round.
"Or," said Jaz, "we could all go together."
"Together where?" asked Elize, eyes puffy and swollen.
"To your parents. We could all confess together. We were all a part of it. We all lied to them."
"What a world," said Sandile, "where you have to apologize for seeing someone because of the color of your skin."
"Sandile," said Jaz, "in all fairness to them, you don't know how they will react. We're apologizing for lying, not for your relationship."
"She's right ... boet," said Miguel.
Jaz felt an internal smile. Had Miguel just stood up for her?
"Ach, this is so ... fucked!" said Sandile, rubbing his brow with his index and thumb.
"That's one thing we can all agree on," said Miguel. "Life has never been pretty down here."
"And now?" asked Sandile.
Miguel: "Now someone puts on a fucking light. Do you realize we're all sitting here in the dark?!"
Jaz flipped the light switch and they all waited some more.
"Well, I need some food, so that's what's next for me," said Miguel.
Sandile chuckled. So did Elize. "I'm also starving," she said.
And just like that, they were back on vacation, as if nothing had even happened.
But it had.
SIXTEEN
They went to an Indian restaurant where Jaz couldn't decide between the Biryani and the Butter Chicken. Eventually she went with the Vindaloo—a lamb curry dish—which Miguel told her was actually of Portuguese origin. She wasn't sure whether or not to believe him and, when she asked the waiter, he smiled incredulously and assured her it was definitely Indian. Miguel shrugged his shoulders confidently.
"The truth is the truth, no matter what people believe about it," he said.
They ate and drank wine (Jaz was now trying red—a Pinotage which left her mouth feeling like every cell in it had contracted to form a sort of cling-wrap where her tongue ha
d once been). The thoughts of what had occurred earlier that day became more and more distant, as if the crashing breakers outside were washing them away with the tide; as if it had all only happened in a dream. How bad could it be, really? The man—this Piet—was on vacation like the rest of them. And he did seem to have had a good time playing touch rugby with the boys.
Jaz watched Sandile and Elize hold onto each other and feed each other curry. She had never seen a couple so well suited to one another. She placed her hand on Miguel's leg. He had gone for the Crab Masala and now had brown curry all over his hands and lips. It reminded her of the ketchup and mustard he'd had on him when they'd sat by the roadside about two months earlier.
How quickly those months had travelled by.
He laughed at the mess and so did she. She wasn't sure if it was the wine or simply the salty air of the ocean, or the fact that they probably had nothing to worry about in the first place, but by the end of the night, she wasn't concerned about anything other than making sure that the four of them had the best time ever on this vacation. They formed up the plan that Elize would call her dad the next day and tell him that Miguel had changed his plans and had met up with them in Durban. At least that would handle the one lie of having told them that it would only have been Elize and Jaz on vacation.
Then, when they returned to Johannesburg, they would come clean about the rest of it.
It wasn't the greatest of plans, Jaz knew, but it was all they had.
The restaurant was not far from the B&B—about a ten minute walk—but on their way back, Jaz noticed the sway of liquor in her blood. It wasn't enough for Miguel to notice (she hoped) but enough to make her feel the additional weight of her body on one leg instead of on the other as she walked.
When they got to the room, Miguel opened the door and flipped on the light. Jaz leaned on the wall, watching him as he sauntered over to the sleeper couch which had not yet been opened.
"Wow, what a day. I'm exhausted," he said, sitting back and putting his palm to his forehead.
Jaz eased the door closed so it gave a gentle click, as if closing it too hard would wake her mother and father up. But mom and dad weren't here.
Jaz was alone.
With Miguel.
In this room.
And the ocean outside.
She realized, also, that wine was an aphrodisiac, and that it probably also raised body temperature. She fanned her shirt.
"I'm just going to freshen up," she said.
Miguel nodded, his eyes already closing as he put his feet up on the table.
In the bathroom, she saw that the sand and wind had beaten her hair like a slave master, leaving it looking disheveled and scraggly. She tasted the salt on her lips and washed her face, imagining how the salt on Miguel's skin would taste as she kissed him down his neck and to his nipples.
She hadn't quite decided if she'd sleep with him or not on this vacation. Most likely she wouldn't. But she did feel the need to let things happen as they did.
And she had come to trust Miguel. She knew he wouldn't hurt her.
Miguel's eyes were closed when she got back to the lounge. He hadn't pulled out the sleeper couch yet. She ruffled through his bag, pulled out his iPod Touch and unplugged the headphones. She dimmed the lights.
She put on Norah Jones's You Turn me On (the very first song—Jaz had noted—that Miguel had burned onto his Best of Jazz CD) and, as it played in the background, she eased herself down next to him and moved some of his curls from his forehead.
He was so quiet when he slept.
As she began to kiss him on the neck, she felt his breaths become deeper, taking a second longer to inhale each time as he slowly roused.
She slid her hand under his shirt and rubbed her fingers across his abs, feeling the years of sport in them. Miguel inhaled deeply.
He moaned.
His eyes shot open.
Without pause, he turned and threw her to her back on the couch below him, burying his lips into her neck, kissing her down her collar-bone, to the top of her chest, rubbing his hands against the sides of her waist, their motion pushing her dress up to just above her thighs.
Not a word was said. As it was always with them: just comfortable silence.
Jaz's breathing grew deeper and her eyes closed. She eased her legs open and felt Miguel's pelvis fall between them. The sounds of the ocean were suddenly clearer, the crash of waves seeming to pull her farther and farther into a lustful sea which had now all but engulfed her thoughts and emotions, taking her into its grasp, drawing her away.
Their breathing synced as they moved back and forth like a boat on an undulating wave.
Jaz's legs curled around his butt and locked him there. Every groan he made seemed to be followed by a breaking wave, as if the two were a syncopated rhythm, each time getting faster, faster.
Faster.
The backs of his jeans abraded her calves as she kept him against her, his buckle rubbing against her lower abs to the point where it grazed her skin. Her dress had slid to above her hips now, Miguel's hands wrapped around her waist as if they were moving her body for her, toward him.
She pulled herself closer, closer, grabbing at him by the flanks of his shirt as if the two of them could only get nearer by actually becoming one.
She heard herself whimper.
Her legs tightened more.
Miguel groaned loudly, the sound carrying for a second and then subsiding into a faint, repeated moan.
She pulled at his lower back, digging her nails into him and pushing herself against him until he finally let out a long roar.
She gave out a final yelp, her body shuddering and the back of her head digging into the couch as her thighs tightened convulsively around his waist so much that she no longer knew if his sounds were from discomfort or from pleasure; and then a crash of the ocean behind them, and her legs relaxed.
She exhaled.
They slept like that the rest of the night, on the couch, Miguel shifting over onto his side, Jaz wrapped in his arms. The next night—both with neck and back pain from the couch—they decided to take the bed instead, just like a couple that had been together forever.
Like lovers.
But they weren't lovers. Jaz had yet to see Miguel in the nude. And he had yet to so much as take her shirt off, their nights of passion quickly falling into the rut of nothing more than the regular friction of clothed lovemaking.
It was clear to her that she wanted to be with him—maybe even forever. It was not clear that she wanted to stay in South Africa. Maybe he would leave, move to Seattle with her. Maybe they could think about it later once she'd decided on what to major in back home.
They'd work it out, surely.
But as the days (and nights) rolled by, Jaz began to feel the weight of the problem like a thirty-ton anchor, the sun rising and setting with a speed comparable only to wildebeest stampeding across the African veld. Their time together was racing by, December approaching with the inexorable unavoidability of a tsunami.
Miguel was holding back—this much was obvious. And she could not force him either. All was up in the air. Jaz was drowning in a whirlpool of questions that had grown to a magnitude that was simply too much for her. And, just like the situation with Sandile and Elize, she chose, for now, to ignore it.
Just for now.
SEVENTEEN
The lie with Elize's parents seemed to have gone well—as well as could be expected. Her parents said they'd talk to her when she got back but, for the most part, told her to have a good time and not to forget that sex before marriage was a sin.
Jaz gave a little internal chuckle at that, but Elize seemed to take the thing pretty seriously so she never mentioned it. Each to his own, she thought.
It was about a ten hour drive to Xai-Xai, the place they would be staying at in Mozambique. They'd be there for two nights and three days—the last three days before they'd go back to college. Back to reality.
The day before they l
eft Durban ("Umhlanga"), Miguel picked up a trailer from a garage that his father rented, and filled it up with canned goods, vegetables, sunflower oil, rice, and potatoes. He would've filled it up alone but, just as he had opened the door to leave for the supermarket in the morning, Jaz had awoken and asked him where he was going. So he reluctantly told her, saying, as well, that he didn't want to come across as some good Samaritan.
It turns out that every time he went up to Mozambique, he packed one of his dad's two trailers with food for a church that then handed it out to some of the people there. They kept a trailer in Durban and one in Johannesburg, just in case Miguel had to travel up to Mozambique from either location.
"You'll understand why when we get there. It's not a religious thing. It's a human thing," he told her.
And understand, she did. Maputo was a war zone—or looked like one. It was hard to find a building that was standing up straight or that didn't have one of its walls blown off. Further into the country and out of the main city (where no one seemed to respect traffic lights), mobs of children and adults alike, each in disheveled and dirty clothes, surrounded their car trying to sell them bangles, chains, sculptures, anything. Miguel stopped the car, a smile on his face while Jaz slowly got over the terror of thinking they were about to be mugged by a mob. They all got out. Jaz bought one bangle, and then another, and then another ....
It seemed that the more she bought, the more they wanted to sell her. It quickly dawned on her that she would not be able to buy enough goods to help them all feed their families. There were women, children, and men on the street.
For a moment, she'd expected to hear Sandile talk to them, but then saw that it was Miguel who was doing the talking—in Portuguese. He looked around and said some things she didn't understand. A few seconds later, as if running toward water in a desert, a man appeared with two white plastic bags filled with something reddish or pink inside. Miguel pulled out some money and gave it to the man and took the bags. The man thanked him and hurried away.