A Home Across the Divide

by April Autumn

  Sajan told Chrissie that in December he usually went to Durban to visit his family but this year he had too much work to spare the time. This was not entirely true, he probably could have spared a weekend to go but he wanted to be with Chrissie.

  Steph, Chrissie, Marco and Sajan had a wonderful New Year’s party on a rooftop. The New Year started for Chrissie with Sajan kissing her passionately, forgetting everyone and everything around them. They both drank too much champagne and Steph had to drop them off at Sajan’s apartment. When they got to Sajan’s apartment, Chrissie went to his bathroom and started throwing up immediately.

  Sajan made her herbal tea which he said would make her feel better. He hugged her and said, “This is my fault, we forgot about having supper and then I bought us way too much champagne.” She woke up with a pounding headache the next morning, for which Sajan gave her painkillers and insisted that she drank lots of fluids.

  A few days later, Chrissie was again at the airport bawling this time as Steph was leaving for Cape Town. That evening she decided it was time to tell her father about her relationship with Sajan. She had always been a lot closer to her dad than her mom. She could no longer use her friends as a cover and she was getting tired of sneaking around like a thief.

  She went into the lounge, “Dad, I need to speak to you.”

  Her father switched off the TV, “What is it, pumpkin?”

  She said, “Daddy I have a boyfriend.” “Oh! That is nice dear, when do we get to meet him?”

  “Dad”, she said, “he is Indian.”

  He looked at her, “What did you say?”

  “He is Indian,” she tilted her chin up.

  Her dad’s face darkened, “Your Mother is going to be very upset; you have to break up with him.”

  Her mom overheard the conversation and came storming into the lounge, “No daughter of mine is ever going to date a fucking Koelie.”

  She glared at her mom, “Koelie is a vile, racist word mom and it does not matter if he is black, yellow, green or orange, he is a wonderful human being and you should get to know him first before you make any judgments.”

  Her mom shouted, “Don’t talk shit! I will never, ever let my daughter date a Koelie, you better break up with him straight away.”

  They started arguing and with every new argument, both of them raised their voices even higher. Eventually her dad, always the timid peacemaker, tried to intervene, “You will have to end the relationship, your mother and I cannot accept this.”

  Her mom was more vicious, “Either you break up with him or you get out.”

  She stood up glaring at her mother, “Then I think it’s time I left.”

  She went to her bedroom and started packing up her clothes.

  Her mom came to the bedroom crying, “How can you bring this shame on us, whoring around with an Indian.”

  She looked at her, “Mom, I love Sajan and I feel sorry for you because your prejudice is blinding you.”

  Her mother slapped her across her face.

  Chrissie picked up her bags and walked out. Chrissie was grateful that the car was her own; she had bought it with the inheritance that her granny had left her.

  She was already planning to visit Sajan so she went to his flat. When he opened the door, he could see that she was very upset.

  He assumed that she was still upset because Steph had left and she did not correct him. She felt comforted lying in his strong arms that night. While he slept peacefully, she lay awake.

  She decided not to tell Sajan what was happening. It was too soon in their relationship for them to move in together and she did not want him to know about her parents. She would be starting her teaching job in a week and then she had to survive for three weeks until she received her first salary cheque. She had R500 in her bank account. It was Saturday night. She could spend Sunday with Sajan but then she would have to leave as he would be back to work early Monday morning.

  The next day was wonderful as she forgot about her worries for a while. She knew that she was completely in love with Sajan. They spent the entire morning in bed making love.

  Sajan said, “I think I am going to take you captive, quit my job and stay in bed with you forever.”

  Chrissie giggled, “Good idea, I will gladly be your prisoner.”

  Sajan kissed Chrissie as he dried her off with a towel and complained, “All I want to do is make love to you. This is ridiculous we have to find other things to distract ourselves or we will never leave the bedroom. My friends are getting irritated because I keep making excuses not to see them, but I want to spend every spare minute with you.”

  He begged her to sleep over on Sunday night, “You don’t have work tomorrow and I am sure your parents won’t mind, after all you are an adult and you did have your own place for the past three years.”

  Chrissie agreed and was relieved as it would give her more time to think about where she was going to stay for three weeks. She put her mobile phone on charge as she did not know when she would be able to charge it again. She kept hoping that her mom or dad would call her. She was hoping that they would give in and ask her to come back.

  Sajan was almost late for work because he did not want to stop kissing Chrissie. Chrissie pushed him away, “Go now, we are both leaving; besides I have things that I have to do today.”

  Chrissie climbed into her car and drove to the nearest supermarket parking lot. She sat in her car and thought, “Where to now?”

  She never had many friends; she did not know anybody well enough to ask for help besides Steph and Ashton. She was sure that soon her mom or dad would call her and tell her to come back home.

  She would have to figure out how to survive. “Let’s see,” she took out a pen and paper and started writing, “I have R500. I have to eat, put petrol in my car and I need a place to stay. To be realistic, I can’t find accommodation for R500. I will have to sleep in my car. I have my gym membership; it’s paid for in advance for a year. I can shower at the gym. R200 petrol will cover me till the end of the month when I get paid. There are three weeks left. Let’s hope I stay with Sajan most weekends, but to be on the safe side I will budget to feed myself for 20 days. I have to keep R40 for the Laundromat; I can’t go to work in dirty clothes. I am left with R260 so I have R13 a day for meals. It’s not much but I can make it work.”

  She thought about what she would do with herself for the week, homeless and close to penniless. She decided that she could spend a couple of hours a day at the gym and the rest at the library – both were places that she could stay at without being charged.

  Around midday she decided to call Steph to find out how she was enjoying Cape Town. When she dialled her number, an automated message came up, “Your cell phone account has been suspended.”

  Chrissie burst into tears; she had not thought that her mom would go as far as to cut off her cell phone. It then dawned on her that it was quite possible that her mom wouldn’t relent. “I will have to buy a new sim card, which will be R2 and R5 for the airtime.” Oh well! Only R7 cut from the food budget. Suddenly she realised she couldn’t RICA her phone. In South Africa, you have to give proof of address to get your sim card RICA or it won’t be activated. She remembered that at the gas station, a Nigerian guy had been selling sims a while ago, saying he would sort out the RICA “quick, quick.”

  She drove to the garage where she had seen him and hoped he would be there. Fortunately he was. She parked her car and walked up to him. She asked him, “Can you help me? I need a sim card but I have no proof of address, I can only tell you where I live.” He said, “No worries I sort it for you. I sort out the RICA and then you pay R50 and you get R50 airtime, plus 100 SMS.”

  “Damn,” she thought, “that is a huge hole in my budget, but I have to do it.” She gave him Sajan’s address and bought the sim card. Within minutes the new sim card was active. She messaged Sajan and Steph saying that she had a new number. Ashton was out of the country so she wasn’t able to contact her.

&
nbsp; She got back into her car and calculated again, she would have R10 a day for food. That barely covered the price of a loaf of bread.

  Chrissie spent the afternoon in Sandton library; it has plenty of comfortable seats and thousands of books. At closing time, she reluctantly left her comfortable seat. She climbed back into her car and tried to think where she could park for the night. If she parked on a deserted street chances were she would be attacked. If she parked at a shopping centre, the police or a security company might chase her away.

  She was nearly out of ideas when she remembered the 24-hour call centre where she temped during her last vacation. The security never checked any vehicles that entered or left the premises. People were going in and out throughout the night. It would be safe and there were plenty of parking spots secluded enough that nobody would notice that she was sleeping in her car.

  She barely slept and tossed and turned all night; her little car was not made for comfortable sleeping. She kept going over the argument with her parents in her head again and again. Was she wrong, should she go back? Thinking about Sajan, she realised that she was not wrong.

  Early in the morning, she pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the gym. She took a shower then she went to the massage chair section. Hardly any gym-goers ever went to this section so she made herself comfortable on one and slept comfortably for a few hours. Midday she went to the supermarket and bought herself a packet of crisps. “Mm, very healthy,” she thought.

  She was feeling very sorry for herself when Sajan called her.

  He asked her, “Do you have plans this weekend?”

  “No”, she replied.

  He said, “Our project has been launched and it is going well so I have taken leave for Friday, can you come with me, I want to take you away for the weekend? We will leave Thursday night.”

  She was thrilled, “Yes, where are we going?”

  “That is a surprise, meet me at my flat at 6 pm Thursday night, pack your bikini, I don’t think you will need any other clothes,” he joked.

  The rest of the week sleeping or actually not sleeping in her car and eating meagre rations did not seem nearly that bad now. The week dragged but finally it was Thursday night and she was standing outside Sajan’s flat ringing the bell.

  He opened the door and laughed at her. To tease him she had left her bag in the car and was holding only a bikini in her hand.

  He grabbed his bag and went with her to fetch her bag from the car. She had left her travel bag on the back seat so that he would not see all the other bags that she had shoved into the boot of her car.

  He picked up her bag and his own and said, “We are walking, but not far.” They walked two blocks to the Gautrain station and were soon on a train to Oliver Tambo airport. From there, they boarded a plane to Cape Town. Once they were seated, she said, “I am on to you now, I know we are flying to Cape Town.

  Sajan leaned over and kissed her, “Mmm, but you don’t know where we are staying in Cape Town or what we are going to do.”

  They were walking out of the arrivals terminal when Chrissie heard someone calling her name. Sajan said “Surprise!” just as Steph came running to her and knocked her over as she hugged her.

  Sajan booked them into a luxurious hotel in Cape Town’s Waterfront. Steph waited in the foyer while Sajan and Chrissie went to drop off their bags and dressed for dinner.

  Sajan took them to a very elegant restaurant at the Waterfront.

  Steph was very excited, “Guess what? Marco has been offered a job in Cape Town. He is moving here in a month’s time, I am so glad, long distance relationships suck. We chat every day on Skype, but it is not the same as being together. By the way Ashton is complaining that you are never online. She has been sending you messages on Facebook and emailing you and she says you never reply.” She looked at Sajan and winked, “Is this man keeping you too busy?”

  Chrissie lied, “Our internet has been down at home and I have not had time to go to an internet cafe.”

  Sajan said, “You should have told me, use my laptop when we get to the hotel room and email Ashton.”

  Sajan said that he felt like taking a walk and left. Chrissie knew that he was simply giving her and Steph a chance to catch up on girl talk.

  Steph looked at him walking away, “Ooh he is a keeper, I am so glad you met him. You are glowing! He phoned me on Tuesday and told me that you were very down because both of your best friends had moved away. He made me promise not to tell you that he was bringing you to Cape Town.”

  Chrissie grinned, “I like Marco a lot as well. He is a lovely man, I am glad he is moving to Cape Town, I wonder if Ashton will ever meet somebody?”

  Steph giggled, “I bet she is breaking a lot of hearts in Oz.”

  Chrissie was tempted to tell Steph about her parents but she knew that Steph would insist on telling Sajan.

  After dinner Steph went home and Chrissie and Sajan went to their hotel room.

  The hotel room had a separate lounge; Chrissie sat down on one of the couches and said, “I hope this is not bankrupting you.”

  Sajan laughed, “Chrissie, the development programming that I do is so sought after that companies are constantly trying to steal me away from my current job, so I am ridiculously overpaid.”

  He took her into the bedroom and started undressing her, “God! You look sexy in that dress, all I could think about in the restaurant was how I wanted to bring you back to the hotel room and make love to you.”

  Sajan, Chrissie and Steph had a wonderful weekend together. They took a trip to the Table Mountain on the cable car and went on a bus tour of the city. They had lunch at Hout bay and got the mock passports issues at Houtbay as a tourism gimmick.

  Chrissie said to Steph, “Lucky you, you live in a very beautiful city.”

  Steph replied, “I know and I love being by the ocean.”

  On Saturday night, they went to a night club with Steph. Sajan and Chrissie were trying their best not to exclude Steph but they could not keep their hands off each other. Chrissie whispered an apology to Steph, Steph whispered back, “Don’t worry I am the same way with Marco.”

  Chrissie was very sad to say goodbye to Steph at the airport on Sunday. She spent Sunday night at Sajan’s apartment. She tried to enjoy being with him but she felt bleak about the week ahead, having to sleep in her little car again and was exceptionally nervous about her new job. She decided that she would call her parents the next day and try to speak to them.

  Sajan misread Chrissie’s sadness, “Don’t worry Chrissie, I will take you to Cape Town often.”

  Chrissie kissed him, “Sorry Sajan, it was a wonderful weekend I am just adjusting to all the changes in my life.”

  Afterwards Chrissie lay with her head on Sajan’s shoulder and they talked. She was feeling nervous about starting a new job. Sajan reassured her, “I know the children are going to adore Miss Chrissie Carter, lucky children, they are going to have the kindest, smartest most beautiful teacher in the world.”

  Chrissie said, “You are just saying that because you want to bang me.”

  Sajan stroked her inner thigh gently, “That is true, I am already jealous of those children; they will get to spend every morning with you.”

  Next morning, they both showered and dressed for work quickly. Chrissie would not let Sajan touch her as she could not be late on her first day of work.

  Chrissie enjoyed her first day; the teachers were very nice. She was shown her classroom and the office gave her forms to fill in with her details. She put Sajan’s address down and she gave his contact details in case of an emergency. The other Grade 1 teacher, Mrs Rose, was very kind to Chrissie. She gave Chrissie a copy of her lesson plan which meant that she did not have to start everything from scratch. She enjoyed decorating the classroom and hoped that she would not mess up once the children were in the classroom. “At least they are new to school so they won’t know if I am messing up,” she thought.

  In the afternoon she stayed
at the school, all the teachers did as there was a lot to prepare for. Chrissie dialled her mom’s cell who not recognising the number, answered.

  Chrissie said, “Hello Mommy.”

  Her mom answered, “Hello Christine – her mom was the only person that ever called her by her full name. I hope you are calling to apologise. We are very upset. I can’t believe that you thought it would be alright to sleep with a filthy Indian.”

  Chrissie battled to keep her voice calm, “No Mommy, I hoped that you were going to apologise. You have my new number if you ever want to get hold of me. Goodbye.” She ended the call.

  Chrissie did not sleep at all that night. The security guards at the gate for some reason were having a very loud conversation and playing music. She could not very well go up to them and say, “Excuse me do you mind? I am trying to sleep here.”