AWOL

by Jennifer Barclay

  None of the sales force was German. Mostly they were American—the team leaders and senior people, certainly, were American, and eventually I came to believe that head office was located somewhere in Utah—though there were also some Danes and English and Norwegians, and now a few Netherlanders. I was the only Canadian.

  It was advantageous, I learned, not to be too conversant in the language we sold in. Before my training was over, I had also learned that the most important thing in sales is the salesman. The thing you are selling is yourself. If you fail to sell yourself, you are letting down the team. The two young and ambitious people I had started with back in Frankfurt had by this time been judged insufficiently ambitious. One morning meeting they were part of the team, like family. At the dinner session they were gone and their names never mentioned again.

  By now we were working the northern city of Bremen. We never stayed longer than a day or two in any one place. The team leaders would take us out in the morning and assign us each a single city block. We never worked in residential neighbourhoods, only business districts. Our practice was to stop at each and every enterprise on the block we’d been allotted. It didn’t matter what the business was—whatever the door, you entered it, the north side of the block in the morning, the south side in the afternoon.

  That morning I had made my first unsupervised sale. It was to an accountancy firm, I think, or perhaps a legal practice. (Unless the place was a restaurant or a church, or an enterprise somehow defined by its premises, I often did not know what kind of business I was pitching.) I knew it would be a good one, though, when I walked in the door and saw a room full of women. Women were always better to sell to than men. This was accepted as a universal truth.

  Now I was facing another collection of women. Very different from this morning’s, though in other ways strangely the same. Five pairs of eyes and five pairs of nipples adjusted their gaze as I entered. Smiling my mendicant’s smile, I gave a formal greeting and drew attention to the carpet. “Sie haben einen grossen Fleck auf dem Teppichboden,” I said, and dropped to my knees on the floor.

  There was no better blemish than chewing gum for showing my product to its best advantage.

  Pluri-Clean was a general-but-amazing-all-purpose-cleanser available only through certified sales agents. Pluri-Clean was marketed in one-litre bottles only—more expensive than store-bought cleansers, yes, but vastly superior. With one bottle of Pluri-Clean, a person would never again need any other type of cleanser. Pluri-Clean, I assured the ladies was “fast ein Wunder!”

  The stain on the carpet was magically vanishing. I had been taught which kinds of spots were most easily dealt with (gum by far the most impressive) and which kind were not (mustard to be absolutely avoided in every circumstance). “Like a miracle!” I said again, knees on the plush red pile. As I worked the spot of spearmint, five nearly naked women arranged themselves around me in a circle.

  One of them let loose with a stream of impenetrable German, but I knew from experience that she was telling the others the chewing-gum stain had been there forever. I spread my hands like a magician. “Fast ein Wunder!” Another woman, older, wiser, in beads more strategically cloaking than those of her colleagues, wondered if this process would bleach the carpet. I had heard this question often enough by now to recognize the theme, if not the words themselves.

  NOW I WAS FACING ANOTHER COLLECTION OF WOMEN. FIVE PAIRS OF EYES AND FIVE PAIRS OF NIPPLES ADJUSTED THEIR GAZE AS I ENTERED. SMILING MY MENDICANT’S SMILE, I GAVE A FORMAL GREETING AND DREW ATTENTION TO THE CARPET. “SIE HABEN EINEN GROSSEN FLECK AUF DEM TEPPICHBODEN” I SAID, AND DROPPED TO MY KNEES ON THE FLOOR.

  “Nein, nein!” I promised, a hand on my heart. The difference in colour, I assured her, would disappear once the carpet was thoroughly dried. This was chief among the reasons why our sales force never stayed in any town for longer than forty-eight hours.

  Now they were laughing and chattering—a very good sign, though by no means the promise of certainty.

  “Pluri-Clean,” I said, still kneeling within the circle of skeptical hips, “ist nicht giftig!”

  To illustrate the product’s incredible non-toxicity, I sprayed some into my hand and licked it. We had been taught to squirt the liquid into the centre of the palm, but to touch the tongue only to unsprayed fingers. “Haben Sie einen Kugelschreiber?” I asked as they gazed in astonishment, and one of them hastened to find me a pen. I reached into my satchel and removed a spotless white towel. With the pen, I scribbled a deep blue stain on the towel’s pristine surface, sprayed it with a little Pluri-Clean, and—Wunderbar!—the towel was virgin white again. (Our towels were carefully pre-treated each morning with ink-removing solvent.)

  Now would have been the moment to spring to the window—Pluri-Clean was very effective in brightening glass—but as I had noted, this location was entirely without. I applied myself instead to burnishing a mirror cut in the shape of a woman’s torso and soon produced a nicely polished squeak. This was cause of much merriment and a ribald spate of Q & A. The beauty of not speaking German was that I was unable to provide any answers beyond the ones I had been trained to provide. One of the ladies wandered over to the bar and poured me a drink. It was a slow afternoon, I gathered, with time and inclination to negotiate.

  I departed, inventory satisfactorily diminished.

  At intervals throughout the day the sales force was expected to rendezvous with the team leaders to replenish our satchels, exchange inked towels for fresh ones, and generally receive motivation against any flagging of effort. I was a few minutes early after leaving the brothel and so had time to find a phone and place an unsupervised call to Munich. That night, as I was being feted for the brilliant success of my first day’s solo hustling, an emergency telephone call interrupted our evening meeting. My colleagues watched as my face turned white. There was silence at the table as I hung up the phone. “My brother,” I choked, barely able to speak, “… a car accident. I have to get home!”

  Early next morning, a train ticket in my pocket, I solemnly shook hands with the team leader, who expressed his deep sympathy for the death of my non-existent brother. Pluri-Clean had agreed to pay my fare to Amsterdam. I had an open ticket with Air Canada, I’d told them, and the connecting flight was out of Amsterdam. With a little luck I might be able to catch a flight home that night. When the white van disappeared around the corner, I walked back to the ticket counter and changed my destination to Munich. Then I placed another call.

  “It worked,” I said, and we laughed and I looked at my ticket and told her what time to pick me up. My two weeks of homelessness had passed. I was twenty years old. There was a girl waiting for me in Munich, and that day I’d finessed my first brothel.

  The world was fast ein Wunder, and its stories all mine for the taking.

  Scott Gardiner now lives in Toronto. His first novel, The Dominion of Wyley McFadden, was published in 2000.

  025Destination: South Africa

  THE GROWING SEASON

  Nikki Barrett

  September 14, 2001, Cape Town

  We are restless, my Afrikaner friend and me. The fish aren’t biting and the winds are gale force here at the southernmost tip of Africa, where two oceans meet. It’s the off-season in the holiday town of Cape Agulhas. Sometimes we drive out past the lighthouse and down the ragged coast where he casts for kabeljou and I rake through the tumble of kelp and bones, on the hunt for sea treasures. I scan the rocks for starfish, and skim my eyes out across the sea, looking for the blow of whales. Some days we drive out through the wildflowers and the farmland, cruising through the growing season in his dun-red pickup. The wheat fields shimmer and wave, on their way from green to gold. I marvel at dappled blue gums with their waggly branches, or majestic blue cranes dipping slender beaks into rusty soil. I giggle at fields of ostriches all googlie eyes, shaggy feathers and wobbly necks. How do they manage that expression of shock mingled with superior resignation? Oh, to be an ostrich, to pull your head out of
the sand with that kind of defiance.

  One hundred rand for the tour, finished and klaar.

  These are our outings, our adventures, R’s and mine. He content to drive, off-duty from the South African Police Service; me content to look out car windows, my thoughts splayed by the electric yellow of canola fields and the whirring blades of windmills. But today our boredom is as big as the sea we live against. We need a real excursion, something more probable than a bay full of fifty-ton whales who survive on microscopic plankton. We need something more real than the lurid stream of CNN reports of massive-scale terrorism in the United States.

  On our last trip to Cape Town, we watched the rugby and went to a Boerdans, a wild farmer’s dance where I held my whisky while R held me, whirling me about in a mean two-step. “Are you sure you want to come to Cape Town with me today?” I ask, knowing this time will be different. “I can go alone. I don’t mind. And I’m not sure you’ll like the show I want to see.” But no, he wants to come with. “Really bokkie.” And it’s not so safe for a woman to go alone. Carjackings on the N2. Rape. Murder. And yes, he’ll try anything once. I phone and book our tickets.

  In the car I explain. It’s the new Athol Fugard play, Sorrows and Rejoicings. It’s all about the lingering effects, the fallout of apartheid. He doesn’t sigh, doesn’t roll his eyes even. He’s humouring me today. It’s my turn, my day. I simply read the cartoon bubble above his head that says, “Please, Nikki, no politics.”

  “Athol who?” he asks.

  Before the play, we are going across to Robben Island. That he is excited about. His parents used to take the ferry over to the island for all-night jolls at the prison mess hall. The fishing was good there. As we drive past Fairfield farm, I can see him anticipating an island picnic. He is, isn’t he? I keep my mouth shut, my eyes fixed on the puff adder flickering across the road. I keep the cartoon bubble over my head as empty as possible.

  In the New South Africa, a trip across the bay to Robben Island costs you one hundred rand. That’s about twelve American dollars, which is good if you’re paying in dollars, not so good if you’re paying in the ever-weakening rand. The island, once the maximum-security prison where Nelson Mandela and other political agitators were treated so savagely during the struggle to free South Africa from apartheid, is now a World Heritage Site, one of the top tourist destinations in South Africa. Ads running in the Cape Times encourage investors to associate themselves with the lucrative brands of “Nelson Mandela” and “Robben Island” by funding development around the new Robben Island gateway. At the ticket office, there is no information describing the tour. It’s straightforward. One hundred rand for the Robben Island tour. Finished and klaar, as the Afrikaners would say.

  Table Mountain is stark against a cutting blue sky as the ferry shivers and hums out of the harbour, leaving Cape Town behind us. God, R loves to be on the water. Look at him. “Look at that sea,” he says, “So flat, so calm. Perfect day to get me some perlemoen.” I love the way he reads the sea and the wind, sizing up days in terms of their fishing and diving potential. He is not a policeman who fishes but a fisherman who polices.

  And me? My identity markers are thin on the ground these days. I no longer say who or what I am. I simply say where I was born, followed by the places where I have lived, as if geography might suffice. Born in Zimbabwe to South African mother, Rhodesian father. Live in Canada mostly. Have lived in England, Scotland …

  As we walk up the gangplank, a photographer offers to snap romantic shots of the couples boarding the ferry, in some bizarre parody of a pleasure cruise. Please. Once on the ferry, we are sardined with mostly tourists: Germans, Brits, Austrians, and some Namibians drinking cane, a clear, potent alcohol, mixed with orange juice. There are South Africans too, black and white, including four Afrikaner women with matching blue bags covered with images of leaping dolphins. Cameras click. The video recorders pan round and round. Penguins bob up and down. Cellphones sing and trill. The dolphin bags open and close.

  The atmosphere is cheerful but strained. R bristles every time the Namibians swagger past to the cabin for more booze. There is some confusion, everyone undecided about the appropriate demeanour for this cozy journey. The tourists, armed with recording devices, are anticipating a sombre foray into South Africa’s very recent past, while the Afrikaner women are out for a jaunt on this day that flirts so boldly with summer. And R and I?

  When we reach the island we are herded onto a bus. We are told a one-hour island tour will be followed by the prison tour. R says nothing, but I know he would rather grab a beer at the shebeen where his parents used to go, check out the colony of jackass penguins maybe. He’s not interested in history that is barely history.

  After the dull coach tour, we all clamber out into sunshine and are introduced to a slight Coloured man, Derek Basson, a former political prisoner who tells us he spent five years in the prison he stands in front of. With the prison, dull and shabby, behind him, Derek explains how he was convicted of sabotage though, in his opinion, it should have been arson. He threw a petrol bomb at a post office as part of his contributions to the struggle to free South Africa from apartheid. Before he leaves us in Derek’s hands, the bus guide repeats his one tired joke: “So, who’s ready to go to prison now?”

  Derek, prisoner turned prison guide, asks us to follow him. Fifty tourists file into a communal cell, bunks at one end of the grey concrete room, benches arranged in a semi-circle for us to sit on. He closes the cell door. This is the extent of the tour: Derek in a communal cell, telling us about the brutal, inhumane conditions in the prison and about the camaraderie, the heroic resistance that surfaced in spite of them.

  We sit side by side, R and I, on the grey bench in the front row of the cell. Derek paces. Up and down, walking over and over the thin mat that once served him as a bed. He looks right at us when he talks. There is no script. With disarming intimacy he randomly shares pieces of his prison life. He speaks in eloquent English but with a thick Afrikaans accent. Afrikaans is Derek’s first language. While an inmate, he used to teach Afrikaans to his comrades. He explains about the hierarchy of privilege based on colour. Blacks received the most meagre food and clothes rations. “Sandals. All we got was sandals made from tires. They rubbed your feet so much, hurt them so much, you ended up not wearing them at all.” It is these details that seem to rile him the most, the injustice of being denied equality in the most basic of arenas—food, clothing, bedding.

  BEFORE HE LEAVES US IN DEREK’S HANDS, THE BUS GUIDE REPEATS HIS TIRED JOKE: “SO, WHO’S READY TO GO TO PRISON NOW?”

  R’s big hands grip the edge of the grey bench. His discomfort is palpable. When I glance at him, I can see his teeth are clenched harder than his hands, and I understand the word “seething.” He is still as stone as Derek’s words tumble forth like gravel, slow and measured: “I detect the mood in this room is sombre. But I want you to know I am not angry anymore. There is no point in anger. You know, there are some former prison guards who came back here to work, and now, now we party together. And let me tell you, when you’ve had a few drinks, inhibitions go away. You say what’s on your mind. We drink together. It’s something to see our children playing together. That is something.”

  After about forty minutes, people start to shift, shuffle feet, move a dolphin bag from one shoulder to the other. The divisions in the hushed room are clear. Some people are moved to the point of tears by this extraordinary moment in history, the triumph of human will that took place on an island reserved for outcasts and exiles, madmen and lepers. Some are wondering when they will get to see Nelson Mandela’s two-by-two-metre solitary confinement cell or when they can pick up their romantic ferry photo. R, along with three of the Afrikaner women, is squirming, visibly agitated. Yes, okay, this is the New South Africa, the Rainbow Nation. Enough of the ANC rhetoric. The “New South Africa” and “Rainbow Nation,” the Dictionary of South African English had warned me, are two epithets that are already used derisively, sarcast
ically in a nation grappling with extreme violence, poverty and an astounding AIDS crisis. The dolphin women are skeptical of Derek’s assertions—designed to attract foreign investment—that South Africa is an economically and politically stable country with an exciting future. One woman raises her eyebrows suspiciously as if to say, “Propaganda.” The fourth dolphin woman, however, is listening intently. She raises her hand, not her eyebrows, and asks Derek timidly, genuinely, “Did you kill anyone?”

  “No. The post office was closed. It was late at night. It was never the intention of the freedom fighters to kill innocent people. The struggle was only 20 per cent violence.” Derek looks directly at R, and I know that R reads this intimacy as audacity, as confrontation instead of two people seeing eye to eye. I have never been this close to R’s anger. Here in the communal cell, at the edges of Derek’s gesture for reconciliation, violence simmers just beneath my friend’s skin. Oblivious tourists glance at their watches.

  “You are South African, Afrikaans, aren’t you?” Derek’s question is for the little woman, but he sweeps his gaze around the room, settling it first on R and me and then across the rest. The little dolphin woman is obviously uncomfortable. She is being singled out. She struggles for words. It would be easier for her and Derek to break into Afrikaans, their first language. She says, rolling her rs fiercely with the typical brei, “Both sides done mistakes. We must try to get it right now. That is the important thing.”

  My eyes brim with tears as I watch this small Afrikaner woman trying to understand, making this small effort to break from her school of dolphin sisters. Derek says to her, gently, “It’s true that apartheid was led mostly by the white Afrikaans, but I am not angry anymore. I have let that anger go. If there are any racists in this room, I want you to think about what your religion, your politics might teach you. Who does it teach you to hate? I encourage you to leave your comfort zone. Learn an African language. Try and encounter someone who is different than you and learn from them. We are all the same when we are born. We are equals. We are equals.”