Jaz & Miguel (11 page)

The next morning, they walked with the local children to their
school. Many of the kids walked barefoot, but Jaz was hard-pressed to find one
child who wasn't smiling. The little girl who'd clung to her leg the day before
was constantly running back and forth to her now, grinning, just like a child
at a playground. Jaz wore leather sandals and, after only a few minutes, they
were already turning red from the sand. Miguel walked next to her, but
occasionally headed off into the distance to throw a stone into nowhere.
Mostly, they said nothing much to each other, but Jaz never felt uncomfortable
around him. In fact, as they walked she had started to expect him to be by her
side more and more often and, when he wasn't there, had found herself looking
around for where he might be.

It seemed that long walks in the mornings were going to become a
regular thing. They had been told between bleary-eyed yawns that morning that
they'd also be getting up early again the next day to go on a nature hike.
Maxine groaned, but Jaz—even as tired as she had been—felt the roving seed of
wanderlust grow in her as she had been told it.

Was it not these very things that had made her want to spend five
months or more in Africa after all?

Sandile took photos, saying he was going to do an article on the
trip when he got back. He also asked Jaz if she'd finally give him that
interview he had requested—at which she replied that she'd thought that had all
been a ruse simply to get her to (
ahem
) date his friend.

"And how's that going for you?" Sandile asked when Miguel
wasn't there.

Jaz clenched her fist and cocked her arm, but Sandile quickly ran
away—he'd seen how she'd hit Miguel the day before and wasn't interested in
being at the receiving end of it himself. 

"Lucky!" she said.

"No, it's not 'Lucky,' it's Sandile."

"Boet," said Miguel, suddenly appearing behind them, "that
joke is only funny if someone actually knows that some people are really called
'Lucky' down here." As if it had become custom, Miguel then put his hand briefly
on the small of Jaz's back once again, edging her forward.

After the walk, they were met by the bus and taken back to the camp.
Then it was onto another lecture which, sadly, went similarly to the day
before, although Jaz was not sure who the target of attacks was this time. People
simply raised their voices and got angry at each other for a while and then chilled
out again toward the end.

Desperate for some air afterward, Jaz walked over to the cheetah
enclosure and knelt down to look at them. Before she knew it, Miguel was at her
side, cross-legged and playing with some grass.

"Tough crowd, isn't it?" he said to her.

Jaz said nothing at first. "Yeah, I—I wasn't expecting that
from ...."

"From what?"

"I don't know. From anyone, really, in South Africa."

"You mean from a black guy? You think the only racists are
white?"

"No!" And now she was upset, because that wasn't at all
what she'd meant. "I mean—just in general. It was like ... a glimpse into
humanity and how we can hate each other and put each other in a category so
blindly."

"Yeah," said Miguel, but his voice sounded distant now,
pensive. "I know what you mean."

And Jaz knew that he did, but didn't press.

"Look, Jaz," he said, "I ... I ...."

"What already?"

"I'm glad you didn't stick your fingers in the fence. That's
the only reason I came over here now—was to check on you." He stood up.

She snickered. "You're a moron."

"C'mon, you don't want to miss the braai."

"The what?"

"Oh, man! You
cannot
tell me you don't know what a braai
is yet." Jaz stared blankly. "It's a barbecue—only better, because it
has
boerewors
."

"
Boere
-what?"

"Come on."

The "braais" they brought out were no Grill Masters; they
were rusty metal barrels, cut in half and standing on metal sticks, loaded with
coal each one. "Boerewors" turned out to be this massive sausage that
curled round and round and round and round like the outside of a seashell.
Literally, it meant "Farmer sausage." Jaz tried not to laugh, and
Miguel told her she had a sick mind. They stood around the braais and talked,
beers from the bar in their hands. Sandile was endlessly taking photos and even
interviewing some of the other students. Jaz got the idea that he was giving
her and Miguel their space because, intermittently, he would turn around and
look in their direction—as if to see if they had finally kissed, one time
rolling his eyes and edging her on when Miguel wasn't looking. What finally
gave it away that he was indeed trying to get something to happen between them,
was when she saw him standing with Thandie and talking to her.

For him to be standing with Thandie when he didn't even want her to
sit on the bus with him could only mean he was absolutely desperate for Jaz and
Miguel to get together.

Jaz also noticed that the African kid that had fought with Stefan
the day before was now talking to him as if nothing had happened. Sandile even
got the guy to put his arm around Stefan's shoulder for a photo.

"Braais and sport," said Miguel, looking at the same scene
and smacking his lips.

"Huh?"

"Braais and sport—better than any political ideology in the
world."

Jaz laughed, but Miguel stayed serious.

"Look," he said, gesturing to Stefan and his new friend now
eating their boerewors sandwiches. "It's true. Haven't you ever seen
Invictus
?
It was rugby that brought this country together. And you should've been here in
2010 for the Soccer World Cup. Wow! The foreign press tried to find bad news.
And, sure, there was some. New York also has bad news. So does Lisbon. You can
always find bad news if you look hard enough for it. But the good news was so
overwhelmingly good, that the bad news was practically swallowed up by it."

Jaz looked back at Stefan and saw ... a soccer ball. She saw a fucking
soccer ball and he and the other African guys were playing soccer! She shook
her head, almost in disbelief.

"Come on," said Miguel. He gestured for them to walk
somewhere else.

They sat at the dusty road, boerewors-style hot dogs in hand with
mustard and ketchup (which they called "tomato sauce" down there)
running all down Miguel's forearms (he had made two, so had no hand free with
which to clean the other).

"Gimme that," said Jaz. And she held the roll while he
licked the mustard off his fingers, another rivulet of the stuff escaping and
landing on his shorts.

"Ah, fuck it!" he said, and they both laughed. "So,
what brings you to our friendly land?" he asked, evincing no particular
emotion about his question.

"Well, you know, I've told you. Human Righ—"

"Nah, don't give me that bullshit. What
really
brought you here?"

Jaz was briefly embarrassed by the question, because she knew as
well as anyone that she'd felt a pull to come to the country which had nothing
at all to do with what they were discussing in that meeting hall every
afternoon.

"There was an article in the newspaper about this girl who'd
come here for the program. And there was a picture of an elephant with it. And
I thought to myself,
an elephant?
I don't know. There was something
about it. And then I googled a bit about Africa and"—she gestured to the
sunset falling behind the hills, reddening the skies—"I just wanted to see
it. It was almost as if— It's stupid."

"No, go on."

"I don't know." She moved a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It was like …."

"You felt there was more to the land than just the land, right?"

That was exactly it. He'd spotted it. He'd worded what she'd been
trying to word for almost a year, just like that. "Yeah," she said,
elated, and feeling, finally, understood.

He smiled. "Now
that
I can believe."

They looked out into the rolling hills in the horizon.

"And you—I mean, the program, why are you doing it?"

Miguel paused halfway before taking a bite of his boerewors roll, thinking.
"Sandile is an incessantly determined individual when it comes to getting
me to do things," he said after careful thought.

Jaz sensed that it wasn't really what he'd wanted to say. "You
guys have"—she pondered the wording—"an
amazing
friendship."

Another moment of silence lingered in the air as Miguel looked over
into the distance, but it was obvious to her that he was really looking at
something else—a picture—in his own mind.

Now would've been the perfect moment, thought Jaz, to talk about
what had happened to his family. She
wanted to tell
him. She wanted to tell him so desperately that
she knew
and that he could tell her. That she understood.

That she would always understand and that they would never need to
speak of it but, like a silent agreement, she would always know, and
comprehend.

But she didn't tell him.

"Hey!" It was Maxine's voice in the distance. Goddamnit,
could the timing have been any worse? "The boys have challenged us, Jaz!
We need you! They say they can beat us—seventeen against eleven."

Jaz didn't turn her head, desperate to hold on to this moment,
feeling it slip through her fingers like the ketchup from the boerewors roll.
But Miguel did turn.

"Do you play foot—I mean,
soccer
?"
he asked.

Jaz shook her head. She didn't play any sports. Sometimes she jogged
(who was she kidding; she never jogged). And, truth be told, she actually just
wanted to sit here a bit longer.

But the moment was gone.

"Well, you're about to learn. Seventeen girls against eleven
guys. The odds are in your favor." Miguel had that smirky, flirty smile about
him again.

"Bring it on!" she said, swallowing her disappointment.

They lost hopelessly. In fact, there was almost outright war when Thandie
had said that one of the boys' goals was illegal and then got up in Sandile's
face about it. Jaz was sure Sandile was going to lose an eye. And when the
other girls joined in (much like they'd joined in to defend Stefan at the class
the day before), the boys decided it would be best to let that goal slide, lest
their potential grandkids (or lack thereof) would suffer.

Nonetheless, the guys scored thirteen, the girls, two—one even from
a penalty shot after they'd convinced the referee (Mr. Patel) that the
four-eyed English kid had taken a swing at Candy.

Yeah right.

That night they made a bonfire and roasted marshmallows (finally,
something Jaz was good at) and, like all other activities, she found herself
naturally gravitating toward Miguel—and he toward her—and they sat together on
the logs around the fire. She wondered if Sandile would feel bad about being
left alone but every time she looked up, she saw him surrounded by African
girls who were, no doubt, trying to impress him. Stefan and Maxine also sat
with them. They told ghost stories (something Jaz always hated) and, at one
stage, she found herself holding tightly onto Miguel's arm.

He didn't pull away.

But he didn't come any closer, either.

Slowly, kids started heading over to bed. By eleven p.m., Candy and
Nita (all but ruining her perfect hair) had fallen asleep on the sandy ground
next to the fire. The air had become crisp and Jaz felt her lips tremble. As
the weight of sleep pressed down on her, she felt her head fall onto Miguel's
chest as he lay with his back to a log now, his legs stretched out to warm his
feet by the flames.

Before Jaz knew it, Miguel was saying something to her, and she felt
a drop of drool on her lips, and she tasted cotton. "Let's go, Jaz. It's
one in the morning."

She had fallen asleep. How much time had she lost?

He helped her up and when she got to her room, everyone else was fast
asleep—including Candy and Nita who must've gotten up sometime between eleven
and now. She crawled up onto her bed, not sure if she was awake or dreaming, at
one stage caressing Miguel's head and telling him (she thought) that she loved
him (no, that can't be right).

Was she dreaming?

Her mind drifted, and the smell of thatch surrounded her like a
white veil, caressing her skin and easing her mind so that she felt like she
was on a cloud of African dust, floating, floating, floating away ... into dreamland.

At five-thirty a.m. someone was shaking her gently to get up. It was
Nita. "Jaz, you need to get up. We are leaving in fifteen minutes."

"Huh?"

"Jaz, the hike, remember?"

The hike. Right ... there was a hike ... today? "Oh, shit."

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and saw Nita's delicate face,
her hair perfectly arranged as if it had never been out of place. Behind her
were Candy, Maxine and Thandie, heading for the door, rucksacks already in
hand.