Jaz & Miguel (26 page)

He cleared his throat, and turned to his car.

Thandie was in the back seat. She'd told them they were to keep
quiet once they got onto Claim Street. If there was one thing she remembered it
was that these guys didn't like noise. They totally freaked out if someone so
much as burped near them.

They'd driven past some sort of road block on their way there. Some
guy that looked curiously like that slimeball reporter had been standing waving
his hands crazily at some police woman.

Here they were now: Hillbrow. So close to the university in
fact—like two opposite worlds, heaven and hell, within walking distance of each
other.

"There it is," said Thandie, pointing at a building with
so many garbage bags outside that Jaz wondered if they ever got picked up.

Abbey could not believe the setback. That sodding idiot of a cop had
held him up for thirty minutes! Everything could have happened and finished by
now. That stupid bobby and her "obey the speed limit" nonsense had
put him very definitely in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time!

And now, the Right
Price
—that was a new one he'd need to add
to his mantra (and to his arsenal).

But ill-fate piled on ill-fate with another setback just as he'd
arrived in Hillbrow: a black SUV, dragging its feet down Claim Street, blocking
his view. There was just no way around it. There was so much garbage around and
so many cars in the street that the road was blocked from either side.

Blimey!

He honked his horn, then flashed his lights, then honked the horn
again. They needed to get the
fuck
out of the way! "Move!" he
screamed. "Move you blooming twits!"
He raised his arms in the air and then punched his roof.

Why were they going so
slow
?

Honk! Honk! Honk!

"Moooove!"

As snail-vehicle dawdled down the glutted road, Abbey felt the
opportunity slipping from him just as that red-head (what
had
her name
been?!) had slipped out of his life all those years back.

He craned his head left and right and flashed his lights and then
opened his window.

"Move!"

Just as he said it, he saw figures, in the distance.

Was that a … gun?

He shot his head back inside, clutched the steering wheel with both
hands, and waited.

Silently.

Miguel had just put his key in the ignition when he'd heard the
sudden honking. The two Nigerians started getting antsy, shouting words at each
other and then at the perpetrator. Who the
fuck
hooted in the middle of
Claim Street at this time of night—someone with a death wish? Now was a good time
to leave. Miguel saw the AK ease its way off the guy's shoulder, his other hand
rising to support it. Bad-Breath had taken his glock out now and was holding it
by his side.
Miguel needed to get the hell out of there.

His eyes on the men, he slid his left hand over to the glove
compartment, got the gat, and put it on his lap—just in case. Then he looked
behind him before reversing.

No, it couldn't be.

What the—?

Dad? Jaz!

Damn it!

Panic threw its fists down Miguel's gullet and ripped his heart and
voice out so he couldn't speak. He looked at the Nigerians: the AK was now
aimed—at something behind him.

Jaz was the first to see the rifle taking aim. Senhor Pinto was
looking in the rear-view mirror at the total lunatic that was going ballistic
behind them. For a moment the guy had stopped. But now he was at it again.

She froze.

And then she saw Miguel's car.

Oh ... God ... no.

A wash of cold water iced her emotions and her ability to react, not
a single thought running through her mind.

AK-guy cocked the gun. Miguel threw his own gun to the floorboard
and fired his body out the car!

"Wait!"

The AK was suddenly aimed at Miguel's face! For a nanosecond Miguel even
thought the man had fired and that time had been slowed and that he had just
died but not yet felt the pain. Bad-Breath looked at him with a hate Miguel
could not name—but the AK hadn't fired. That fucking maniac was
still
hooting. Who the
fuck
was this idiot?

Almost instantly, a scream: "It's OK. It's OK!"

Jaz?!

She was out the car now.
What the hell is she doing outside the
car?!

The AK swung to her.

"It's OK!" shouted Miguel desperately. "She's with
me. It's
OK
!"

Now the AK back to him.

Miguel eased up, and spoke slowly, gesturing with his hands to calm
down "It's O … K. We're leaving."

AK-guy was antsy, agitated, swinging nervously between Miguel and
Jaz, Miguel and Jaz, Miguel and Jaz, Miguel and Jaz. There was a hectic frenziness
in the man's eyes. That same frenziness that … Tsepho had had.

Tik!

Miguel, with hands up defensively: "We're leaving. We're going.
It's all good. It's all good. She's with me. It's all good, my man. Jaz, get in
the car." Miguel was easing himself into his car, Jaz also now moving
back. "It's OK, my man. It's OK."

God Almighty he'd never forgive himself if something happened to her
tonight.

Never
.

Please, God, or … whoever or
whatever
… please, just don't let anything happen to her. I will do
anything
.

"Get out of the fucking way!"
Was that a British
accent?
The AK pointed at the car behind his dad's. And
wait a minute. I
know that voice—that sickly, disgusting, high-pitched, rasping voice that could
only belong to—

"The noisemaker is not with us," said Miguel—a tone of
finality in his voice. He knew who the man was now, and he had no sympathy for him.
Not an iota of it. He could've done something, said something, and Sandile
might've still been alive. And what exactly was he doing
here
, and at
this time—just "passing through the neighborhood"?

"We're leaving. The man in the back is
not
with us—not
at all. He is on his own," he said again, trying his best to make his
voice travel so he'd be heard. And then Miguel saw it: the faintest of nods and
a close of the eyes from Bad-Breath, as if in silent understanding of the unmistakable
clarity of Miguel's statement.

Now was their chance!

"Go Jaz, Go!"

As he told her that, Bad-Breath turned to AK-guy and nodded again.

The glock aimed.

 Miguel's door was still open when he slammed on the gas. Jaz was
half in his dad's SUV, her leg dangling.

Gunshots.

Screeching tires, and a pause for a moment as his car hung while the
smell of burned rubber went into his nose.
Move for fuck's sake!

The tires finally gripped the ground and Miguel's back rammed
against his seat.

Gunshots again.

Ratatatatatatatatatatatat.

Exploding light bulbs of gunfire from the muzzles of the two guns all
aimed at— What?

His perception increased to where he could now see it all at once:
the stop sign up ahead (which he would skip), his dad's SUV behind him (which
was moving, and which had—he looked carefully—
no
bullets in it!), the
flashing blaze of bullets being fired from the AK and glock into the splattering
window … of that guy behind them—that same guy who'd stood and watched, taking
photos, while bullets had been pumped into his best friend's heart.

His brother's heart.

Welcome to Sunny South Africa you fucking twat!

Miguel fishtailed around the stop sign, his car screeching like
Edward Cullen's in that
Twilight
movie when he rescued Bella from those wannabe
rapists.

But Miguel had rescued no one today. He'd done the exact opposite.

His father was right behind him. Were they
really
safe? He
searched his rear-view mirror again. Jaz was there, and she looked—he checked
one more time, closely—
fine
. Yes, she was fine. Not smiling, but alive.
And his father. And … Thandie? My God, she was also here? They were fine.

Yes. Thank God.

They were fine.

He grabbed the note with Tsepho's address on it, crumpled it, then
looked at it one more time in his hand.

He threw it out the window.

When they got home, tears poured down Miguel's face. His father
hugged him, and Miguel cried and cried and cried. He cried for Sandile, and he
cried for what he had nearly done to all of them.

But Jaz stayed away from him, her skin still pale with shock, eyes
puffy and red, her arms crossed, resting against the SUV. Thandie was next to
her, angry as the devil. Neither said anything. Miguel gave his dad the gun. "The
important thing is that we are all safe," his father said. It never ceased
to amaze Miguel: the sheer quantity of forgiveness available to a parent for his
child.

His father went inside.

"You almost got us killed," said Jaz. Blunt, direct.

It was the truth. It had the sting of it. Because of his own actions
tonight, he could've lost her forever. And then, what would there have been to
live for?

He had no words.

Jaz: "We'll leave in the morning."

He nodded.

What else was there to say?

The next day, Jaz called Elize. She didn't come to the phone because
her parents said she was still too shocked to speak. Jaz took some of the money
she had saved for the long vacation she'd planned for after the semester (which
she'd decided she would not take) and rented a car. She was still afraid to
drive on the wrong side of the road so she asked Thandie to drive.

They visited two people: Nita and Elize.

Nita was moving about now and recovering fast. Although, as if it were
even possible with such a small frame, she had lost some weight. The doctors
said it was normal, and what little weight she needed to pick up would come
back when she got off the painkillers.

As for Elize, whom they visited straight after, her skin was ashen,
and she carried thick, black bags under her swollen eyes. Jaz and Thandie spent
the next few days with her at home, doing nothing but taking turns sitting in
her room, talking to her, helping her mom with dinner or doing chores that
Elize would've normally done. In the end, it was Elize's father who had been the
most grateful. Jaz came to discover that Elize was the daughter he'd always
wanted; someone he'd do anything and everything for. And only after Jaz and
Thandie had spent a while there did Elize start to come out of the funk she'd
been in. After two weeks, Elize had stopped crying as much and was able to go
out with them to Cresta Shopping Center for ice cream. The relief on her
father's eyes was clear—as if his daughter had come back from the dead.

Although he didn't directly say it, Jaz knew it was why he'd held a
braai the next Saturday and insisted on Jaz and Thandie being there. He said
that, if either of them didn't come, the braai would be off. Probably the whole
neighborhood was there—at least it looked like it. Had it been a statement? Was
he telling the neighborhood something by holding it? Jaz never found out.

Shortly after, even that fucking Nazi-looking AWB flag from seven
blocks down had disappeared. Jaz wondered if Mr. Van Zyl hadn't personally had
a hand in making that happen. But she also never asked about that.

As the weeks progressed, Thandie and Elize started hanging out more
and more together by themselves, Jaz choosing to stay at the dorm and do some
reading or studying. In the end, it had simply made more sense because what was
the point in investing emotional coins in a relationship that was destined to
end?

And Jaz was going to leave, the month she would depart stampeding
toward her with every day that passed.

Miguel dropped out of the IHRE program almost immediately after the
incident in Hillbrow. A few weeks later, Jaz had Thandie pop by his house and
find out how he was doing, but it turned out he'd relocated to Mozambique to
permanently run that branch of his father's business. Why had he chosen to do
that?

She'd seen him from a distance at Sandile's funeral (which must've
been attended by half the city of Soweto). But Jaz never spoke to him; it was
all just too painful. And it seemed he was also avoiding her anyway. If she had
known that he would be leaving the country, however, she would've said goodbye
or … said
something
. Ironic, wasn't it, Miguel leaving and Jaz staying?
It occurred to her, later, that she didn't even have an email address for him. It
would be a good reason to get into that stuff—email, that is. In the end,
however, what good would it have done for her to have a way of contacting him
from so far away?

The funeral had been difficult for Jaz. As much as Thandie had
explained that, in their culture, the person would be sent off with everything
they needed so they could come back as an ancestor, Jaz had considered this to
be only a sweet—albeit wishful—thought. Out of respect for the cultural
practice, she said nothing, but believed little of it.

Jaz sank herself into her schoolwork. Almost all of the foreign students
had returned to their home countries only days after the riots, afraid that
there was going to be a "civil war" in South Africa. Ironically,
Stefan was one of the few who stayed—he and that English guy with the matted
hair (who turned out to be a pretty decent guy) as well as that Scandinavian
girl that Jaz just never got around to talking to.

Jaz was proud of the decision she'd made—to
stay
in the
program. She was proud that she'd stood up to her parents and that something
that was purely her call had turned out OK.

Another thing she had taken to doing was going through Sandile's unpublished
articles on his laptop. Jaz had spoken to his father about all the writing he'd
done (and not published) and had the idea of putting it all together in a book
to hand out to Sandile's friends and family. She found that many of the
articles were like diary entries instead of articles, and Jaz began to
understand why he hadn't wanted to publish them—they were just too personal. The
more she read, the more she missed his company, and the more the tears ran down
her face. But they were cathartic tears, because Sandile's writings spoke mostly
of hope and a future. She did this night after night, just trying to understand
the things that had gone on in his mind. She didn't want to admit it, but part
of her interest was probably also so she could understand Miguel better.

Sandile spoke a tremendous amount of Miguel in his writings.

Two months rolled by and soon it was the end of November, and almost
the end of the program. Jaz's ticket was booked, and she'd be heading back to
Seattle on December 11th, 2013.
Elize, Thandie and Nita
had twisted her arm to spend at least a few
days
in Cape Town before she
left
. It had not been that difficult to convince
her—she was already starting to miss them.

After her final exam, Jaz went to the street where Sandile had lain
all those months before. She thought of what she'd learned in the time she'd been
in South Africa. The most important lessons had been out of the classroom.
She'd learned of Love, and Hate. Of Responsibility, and Carelessness. Fear and
Courage.

Life.

Death.

She'd learned that, as much as one tried to find meaning in
meaningless things, sometimes things simply had
no
meaning. Sometimes
they just made no sense. Sometimes, what was needed, was simply to
move on.
To be strong and face life anew, even when life pulled you down.

Jaz didn't feel strong, even after all this time.

She shook her head. S
tanding there, she understood
how Miguel had felt all those months before—unable to
feel
. It was like a huge tidal wave of emotion that was sitting just
inches back of her head, waiting to rush forward with such pressure and force
that it would take anything and everything away with it.

And what would be the point?

Would it not be better to simply feel ...
nothing
... instead of all that pain?

This is what she felt now.

Nothing.

No love.

No hate.

Nothing at all.