Afrika (9 page)

“What did you say?” Kim shouted. She saw Themba in the far corner of the field.

Elephant Ears spoke louder, “I said, sissie girl, go home.”

Kim lunged forward. Before she could think, her fist lifted and she clobbered James down to the ground.

James put up one knee, shifted his weight onto it and stood. His face red and furious, he came at Kim.

Kim was ready for him. Her emotions were churning inside her and she felt very strong. She crashed her fists one, two, three solid punches to his face, chin and chest. James tumbled down.

Kids gathered around. James rose to his feet again, but did not come back at her. Clearly shocked, he took a step away, checking out his nose and chin.

Kim moved off, panting. She hoped Themba was watching.

The principal, walking at quite a clip, pushed through the circle of boys. She squared her shoulders
and stood in front of Kim. “What is your name?” she asked loudly.

“Kim van der Merwe.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve,” Kim gulped, “I mean thirteen.” She was mixed up as she tried to slow down her breath.

The principal was furious. “I cannot stress enough how inappropriate this behavior is,” she said. Then she escorted Kim off the field and into the school. A group of kids followed behind them. They were eager to see what trouble she would get into. The principal shooed them off irritably. “It's over,” she said.

A few minutes later, from the window of the principal's office, Kim watched her mother arrive at the entrance. When the caretaker opened the gates, Riana stumbled forward. Kim noticed that her mom had changed her pants and put on shoes, but was still in the same white T-shirt that she'd slept in. She had woven a scarf around her unwashed hair. “You stay right here,” the principal said, as she went to meet Riana.

Kim rubbed her hand across her mouth and waited for what felt like a long time. She knew she was too old to be fighting, but clobbering James made her feel reckless and powerful. She really hoped that Themba had seen how angry she was. She also hoped this fight would convince her mother
that they could not remain three extra months in South Africa.

Riana was quiet and pale when the principal finally led her into the office. She appeared as if
she
were the one to have had the breath knocked out of her. The principal pursed her lips and spoke. “Your mother tells me that you are not very happy in our school. You need to talk over your problems and not bring them into the schoolyard.”

“Yes, Miss,” Kim said.

“I'm afraid that I must suspend you for a week.” The principal looked grimly from Kim to her mother. “As you well know, in this country we are trying to solve our problems with negotiations, not violence. If anything like this happens again I will be forced to expel your daughter.”

Silently, Kim followed her mother out the door and past the deserted tennis courts and manicured lawn. In a moment they were sitting in the car outside the schoolyard, the tall iron gates locked behind them. Kim took three or four swallows from Riana's water bottle. She couldn't believe how good it felt to be off her sore ankle.

“James is a racist pig,” Kim said by way of an excuse.

Riana did not respond. She didn't shout or question. Kim was scared. It was as if her mother was having trouble understanding what had happened.

Riana's cell rang and she winced. She put the phone to her ear and listened. Her hand shook as she jabbed a loose strand of greasy, dark blonde hair under her scarf.

“Lukas, I'll try,” whispered Riana and then flipped her cell closed and rested the smooth silver surface on her cheek, trying to cool it.

“What's wrong?” asked Kim.

Riana shook her head from side to side as if trying to rouse herself. “They want another sound bite from the parcel bomb story.”

Kim remembered the horrible story about the mother whose teenage daughter had been so badly injured. Riana would now have to relive the interview with the distraught woman and find a quote or two that would sum up her pain and hit home to a Canadian audience.

Kim felt guilty about being suspended. Riana didn't deserve to work all day on gruesome stories and then have a kid like her to contend with!

“I'm sorry, Mom,” said Kim,“I really am. Let's go home, send off the story, and then go to the beach.”

“I can't! I can't,” said Riana, pounding the steering wheel.“I can't – just – go – to – the – beach.”

Kim was even more frightened now. Her mother was unraveling like a ball of yarn that had bounced off a table. “Mom,” Kim asked gently, “are you okay to drive?”

Riana did not respond. Then, she began to cry. She made no noise, and Kim would not have noticed, except every once in a while she flipped her finger under her large glasses.

“Are you crying?” Kim asked.

“No.”

It was unbelievable. Her mother, despite all her outbursts, had never once cried in front of Kim. “You are too crying.”

“I am
not
.”

Kim placed her hand on top of her mother's. Suddenly, an idea struck her. It was a risk, sure, but there was a soft feeling between her and her mom, a feeling that usually wasn't there. She decided to take a chance. “Maybe you'd feel better,” she whispered, “if you just told me his name.”

Her mother blinked twice. “Who?”

“My father,” said Kim.

“Hendrik Fortune,” Riana said quietly.

“That's his name?”

“Yes,” said Riana.

Kim kept her hand on top of her mother's and silently repeated the name over and over so as not to forget it.

Riana swallowed twice then spoke. “I've made a decision. I will not stay on. Let's just finish up what we agreed to in the first place and leave.”

“Okay,” said Kim. She wondered if the principal had convinced her mother that Kim was better off in Canada.

Riana pulled her hand away and turned the car key. “I should have told you his name long ago, but I couldn't.”

Kim had a million questions to ask but she needed to formulate them carefully. Coming from Riana this was a lot of information for one day. They drove in silence. They were both exhausted and the quiet was calming.

When they pulled into the driveway, Oom Piet's Land Rover was parked there. Piet was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette. Bliksem was sprawled on the driveway. The dog leaped to his feet when he saw Riana's car.

“Check how tired you are, man!” Piet said rushing up to Riana's side of the car.“Lettie tells me. You work day and night like a machine. You live off chocolate and coffee. You're getting stretched thinner and thinner until what, Riana, you snap?”

Riana stared in silence, then blew her nose.

“Listen. I had to come into town for business. Enough is enough, Riana. You have to now come home.” Fired up, he glanced at Kim to include her. “It works like this, see. Red-pink-crimson sunsets that work magic on the
koppies
, the little Karoo hills,
until they're etched in purple against the darkening sky. Imagine that now, Kim. And you can meet your cousins, Marjike and Japie, and old Grandpa.”

Her uncle leaned into the car in anticipation. Kim couldn't help but be excited, too. She had heard about this farm since she was little and she really wanted to go.

“Mom,” she pleaded. “Are you listening to Oom Piet?”

Her uncle gripped the car door as he spoke. “Riana, remember the warm, clear Karoo air? The deep blue of the heavens? The golden ball of sun in the sky?”

“Mom, I don't have school next week,” Kim reminded her.

Piet waved his hand to make sure Riana was paying attention.“What about the Karoo nights, hey Riana? And the Southern Cross in all its glory Have you forgotten? No city lights to mar its splendor.”

“Okay,” said Riana with a weak smile. “I'll take next week off. We'll come.”

“W
hy won't you tell me what this is all about?” Kim yelled as a shower of spray flew up from the stern of the ferry.

“Soon,” Themba shouted above the wind.

Kim held fast to the railing as the boat slammed against the water. It was Saturday the day before Riana and she were scheduled to leave for the farm. Themba had banged on their kitchen window and announced that he had a surprise. He had arranged for Ntombi to take them to the Cape Town harbor. He would tell Kim nothing else, but he asked her to bring her father's notebook along.

Outside on the deck, the wind was fierce. Themba moved closer to her ear. “I didn't want Ntombi to know what we're up to,” he said.

Themba looked back at the dock where twenty minutes ago he and Kim had left his aunt. He had suggested that Ntombi wait for them in the dock-side café where they had bought the tickets for the trip to Robben Island. Her hair had recently been highlighted with red and braided with beads, and
Themba reminded her that she didn't want it ruined in the wind. “Go on,” Ntombi had said, opening her magazine. “I don't want to see the prison. The ferry returns at three. I'll meet you back here then. Bye-bye.”

Kim on the other hand, was curious. Robben Island was the site of the prison that once imprisoned President Mandela.

She watched as Cape Town – sheltered beneath that odd, flat-topped mountain – got farther and farther away and then evaporated into the fog. She felt slightly queasy from nerves, excitement, or the motion of the boat. Thankfully, Themba didn't appear to notice how green she must have looked. She didn't want anything to spoil this excursion. She was ashamed of how she had shouted at him on the school field last week, on the day of her fight with Elephant Ears. Two nights after the fight, Kim had broken down and called Themba. She was sorry about how the argument had gone. What right did she have to judge him? It was his business, not hers, if he went to the hearing about his father's death, and she told him so. Then she went on to tell him the news about her own father's name. Themba was thrilled to finally have a real clue, and he appeared to have forgotten the argument. “What's important now is finding Hendrik Fortune,” he had told her.

“I have a lead about your father,” he said as he
looked out to the sea. “As soon as you gave me his name I started looking at phone books. I found what I was looking for at the Cape Town library.”

Kim's heart raced. She rubbed her stomach with one hand, her chest with the other. She needed to be strong and not get sick.

“A man called Hendrik Fortune lives on Robben Island,” Themba added.

Kim started, but then recovered.“Are you sure?”

Themba nodded. He narrowed his eyes in the wind and did not speak for awhile. Kim wondered what was going on in his mind. Themba was a mystery to her. Why was he pushing her so hard to find her father? She suspected that this search had something to do with his feelings about his own father. Silently she watched the sea until the boat docked alongside the jetty.

They climbed off the boat. “Look at this,” Themba exclaimed, squatting to pick something off the path. A child behind them bent down to see. “A
shon-go-lo-lo,”
said Themba. The millipede was the width of a fat finger, with countless legs. “It's good luck,” said Themba. “Maybe we'll find your father today.”

“Sies,”
said the child crinkling her nose in disgust.

Even though the creature was good luck, Kim could not bring herself to touch it. Themba set it
down on a lime-green aloe plant. Then he straightened up and peeled off his jersey. “Listen,” he said as they stood in line to get on the bus. Together, they listened to the deep, melancholy sound of the harbor foghorn – a sound Kim had never heard in landlocked Alberta.

Kim followed Themba into the bus that would take them to the old prison that was now a museum. The bus driver, a balding, round, black man, explained that this small island had served as a prison for four hundred years. “Criminals, political prisoners, and lepers were exiled here,” he told them.

The bus rattled and lurched along the dirt road. There were no cars, no hotels or cafés, and no shops. The landscape was flat and dusty with the occasional rock or clump of bushes that looked like upright pineapples. The island looked almost as desolate as the moon.

The bus eventually rumbled to a stop in front of the prison, but Kim remained in her seat. Her heart raced. Was she really ready to know about her father? Emotions, all of them fighting with each other, rushed at her, making it hard to breathe.

“What's the matter?” Themba asked.

She folded her arms stubbornly across her chest and remained silent. How could she explain what she was feeling?

“Come on,” Themba said gently. He raised himself out of his seat.“Maybe we can find someone in the museum who knows something.”

Kim followed Themba and the other visitors through the entrance into a wide-open space with a few prickly trees off to one side. The prison walls were made of huge black rocks cemented together in an irregular pattern. Kim was shocked to see how small the windows were. Set back into the rock, they were secured with thick bars. On top of one wall was a coil of vicious-looking barbed wire. The sun was burning through the fog and it was getting hot.

A thick vine had twisted itself into knots around an old clothesline. Beside it stood the guide – a thin man in a faded suit without a tie. He introduced himself as Amos, a former inmate. As he waited for everyone to form a circle around him, Themba dug his elbow into Kim's side and whispered: “When we get a chance, show him the notebook and ask him about Hendrik Fortune.”