by Linzi Glass
‘America,’ Father said to me the next morning after a bad night of sleep in a cramped hotel room in the industrial part of the city. Outside I could hear the grinding of machinery and the hissing of steam being released from a nearby combustion plant. ‘We can’t waste any time. I spoke to your mother this morning and she’s locking up the house and going to Cape Town for a while. Much too risky for her to be in Johannesburg right now.’
Father’s shaved head now had a dark shadow covering it. I knew that in just a few weeks his hair would grow back and be thick and wavy again but nothing else in our lives would ever be the same again.
‘America, Father? Whereabouts?’ I pulled the blonde wig back on to my head and prayed that I would not have to wear it once we were far across the Atlantic Ocean.
‘New York,’ he said. ‘My contacts have a place for us to stay there.’
Father sat down on the edge of the small twin bed and ran his hand along the frayed bedspread. ‘I would have stuck to corporate law and left politics alone—’ he shook his head – ‘had I known it would do this to us. To you, Ruby.’
‘Father, stop!’ I raised my voice. ‘You’ve saved people’s lives, freed them from jail when they were innocent. Stood up for what you believed in.’ I took his hand in mine. ‘Alles moet verby gaan, Daddy. That’s what Loretta says. Everything shall pass.’
‘How did I get so lucky? To have two such remarkable women in my life?’ He pulled me towards him and I could feel his heart beating in his anguished chest.
It was a large plane and not a small seagull that carried us high above the continent of Africa, still it soared ever higher away from all that was familiar into the blue skies.
On the plane I wrote a long, mushy, sad letter to Johann and promised that I would write in a few days once we were settled in New York. I remembered a poem from school about a brave warrior and wrote it on a card for Julian hoping that it would find its way to him through Mother. The events of the past few days made me feel suddenly very tired and I leaned against Father, who was in the seat beside me, and dozed off. My last thought drifting off was that I prayed when I awoke I would be home and in my own bed; the sunlight filtering through my flimsy curtains, the welcome sound of Mother’s slippers pattering across the carpeted floor with a cup of warm tea for me. But I awoke to the humming of the plane’s engines.
I held on to Father’s arm and he covered my hand with his.
‘Everything’s going to be all right, Ruby.’
‘Will it, Father?’ I asked.
Eighteen hours later we landed in America.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On the fourth of July I stood in the middle of Times Square with thousands of people to celebrate America’s bicentenary. Most were dressed in red, white and blue and many wore the fashions and styles from the eighteenth century. The American flag was hoisted on every building and national flags of all sizes were waved in the hands of children and adults alike. I stood beside Father, whose hair already covered his head in short bristles, and our new housemate, Ezekiel, an ANC member now living in exile in Brooklyn.
‘Two hundred years of freedom. Liberty and justice for all!’ the crowd yelled.
Had it been not even three weeks since the Soweto Riots? Had I already been in New York for a fortnight? Time had taken on a different pace, fast and slow, moments that felt like hours, and hours that passed like seconds. Everything came and went in strange collections of time and space. I still had to catch up inside with the rapid changes that had occurred in my life. The lack of routine, the unknown future that was mine. There was a time, not so long ago, I thought as I watched the sky darken overhead, when I woke up in the morning, got dressed and rode my bike to school. I stopped by my mother’s gallery in the afternoons, did my homework, spent time with Julian and ate dinner with my family. It was a time I would never have again.
‘It’s going to be spectacular!’ Ezekiel said excitedly to Father and me. He had lost an arm when he had been placed in solitary confinement in a prison in Pretoria before they released him due to lack of evidence. A white lawyer, not unlike Father, had represented him and found him safe passage to New York six months ago. ‘We’ll never see anything like this again!’ His empty sleeve hung limply by his side as he waved a small flag in his good hand.
There were people of every race and colour melded together: black, white, Hispanic, Germanic, Latino, Asian, Polish, Indian, Russian and more. They held hands, hugged each other, swayed together in unison as the American National Anthem played from loudspeakers that hung all around. Father gazed down at me. His eyes looked tired, the lines etched deeper in his forehead.
‘You like fireworks, don’t you, Ruby?’
I nodded just as the first explosion of glittering colour filled the night sky. It was followed by another explosive display, then another and another. The immense crowd applauded louder and louder with each new colourful burst of light. It was, just as Ezekiel had predicted, spectacular. Red, white and blue rainbows arced against the backdrop of New York’s skyline, fountains of silver poured like shimmering water from the heavens above, crimson and indigo stars exploded everywhere. It was in that moment, when the sky was filled with an overwhelming abundance of colour and light, that I loosened my grasp on the rolled-up object I held so safely in my hand. I undid the ribbon carefully as a fountain of golden light showered down from above. I unfurled its sturdy paper slowly until it lay open against the wide arched rainbows and the glittering stars.
We were thousands of miles away from home, but I held the picture of the hopeful young boy from the shanty towns of Soweto, his tattered clothes two sizes too big, up towards the light, the purple crayon glowing ever brighter in his little hand.
‘Look, Julian,’ I whispered, ‘I have brought you with me to freedom.’
Author’s Note
The Soweto Riots have been seen by many as the event that signalled the beginning of the end of apartheid. The effects of the Soweto Riots were echoed across South Africa and the world.
The South African government, as an immediate aftermath of the Afrikaans language issue, which was the igniting cause of the Soweto Riots, withdrew the Afrikaans language requirement for black schoolchildren.
The 1980s were turbulent and bloody, but it was becoming clear that the era of apartheid was nearing its end.
On 10 February 1990, the headline of every newspaper around the world was that South Africa’s most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison. Hundreds of other black political prisoners were also released. They included well-known black artists who had been incarcerated.
Finally, in 1994 the system of apartheid was dismantled in South Africa forever.
Acknowledgements
My gratitude goes first to my brilliant and very understanding editor, Sarah Hughes, who encouraged me through a difficult personal year in her calm, gentle way and whose notes are always spot-on. A big thanks to my copy editors, Samantha Mackintosh and Wendy Tse, for their tireless and meticulous work, and an additional word of thanks to Publicity Director Adele Minchin, who takes such good care of me when I am in the UK.
My deep appreciation goes to my wonderful agent, Shana Kelly at the William Morris Agency, who works so very hard on my behalf and keeps me focused and sane. My gratitude also goes to agents Tracy Fisher and Alicia Gordon who both take such a personal interest in my life and career.
My creative process is never a solitary one and I am blessed to have a wonderful family and group of friends who are so supportive of my writing life. Thanks to my father, Harold, who is my sounding board and encyclopedia for anything historically South African, and to my mother, a voracious reader, whose opinion I truly value. Thanks and love forever to my big sister, Caron, who is my rock and strength in life.
A special thanks to ex-husband Marvin Katz, who remains such an important part of my life, and a big kiss to stepdaughter Vickie Espudo and granddaughter Emma J. A million words of gratitude must also
go to the extraordinarily talented women in my writing group, Terri Cheney (friend extraordinaire), Helena Kriel (South African soul sister) and Terry Hoffmann, led by great friend, mentor and author, Lisa Doctor. Our Tuesday nights truly are sacred.
An eternal thanks to my best friend, Kathy Jackoway, who has held my hand for twenty years. My love and gratitude goes to friend of many years Barbara Mandel who is there for me in so many ways, especially when life is less than perfect. Thank you, my dedicated animal-rescue partner, Sylva Kelegian, for sharing my struggles and joys on a daily basis in our efforts to save animals in crisis. What a great year of saving dogs (and a few cats) this has been for us! Thanks, as always, to Dr Ron Furst for his unwavering support of me, and his never-ending generosity. A word of appreciation to Damon Shalit who shares my passion for bringing stories of the country of our birth into the light. My love goes to Patty Wheelock for being such a good friend and wonderful human being. My gratitude to my dear friend Andrea Kerzner who is a reminder of how much we have both grown since our high-school days in Johannesburg.
A very, very special thanks goes to cousin Linda Givon, owner of the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, for being the inspiration behind the story of an art-gallery owner whose devotion and commitment to helping black artists during the reign of apartheid was unequalled. The wealth of information that you shared with me about your experiences was invaluable.
Lastly, a big hug goes to my beautiful eighteen-year-old daughter, Jordan, who is always willing to give me her creative input (even in the early hours of the morning) and whose insights truly helped shape some of the ideas in this novel.