We Are Not Such Things Read Online Free Page B
Author: Justine van der Leun
called on to talk. He was mumbling: Man, he hoped Makhulu did not make him stand up before the group.
“Amy was an accidental hero,” Nancy said.
Mzi’s hands were shaking. He looked down at them, and so did I.
“Her death was a Shakespearean tragedy!” Nancy said.
The old lady and the girl had hit up everyone, I noticed. Every lapel boasted a beaded pin and a cutout heart.
“Linda is strong, charismatic, beautiful,” Nancy said.
I looked around. I felt a surge of fury, inexplicable in its intensity. I moved closer to Mzi. In a few days, his great-aunt’s house would burn down, with his great-aunt inside. Just like his own mother’s house back in the old days of politics and firestorms, when the ANC kids in the neighborhood shot it full of lead and set it alight with petrol bombs. Now there was no liberation movement to blame, no just cause or grand scheme, no enemies intent on your demise. Just faulty wiring and cheap petroleum heaters. Mzi was listening intently to Nancy, his face set in that practiced flat expression of his, composed specifically to shroud the fact that he was almost always overwhelmed by various emotions.
Nancy praised Easy and Ntobeko. This was a story of “gentle forgiveness,” she said. “Of lived apology!”
When she finished her speech, the crowd applauded.
Linda stood before her guests. She looked for Easy and Ntobeko. Ntobeko was long gone, so she called for Easy. A sharp intake of breath, back straightened, and then he emerged from behind us and went to her. Easy hooked his arm in Linda’s and stood with her as a local reporter scribbled, a pair of student videographers filmed, the hometown newspaper photographer snapped away. Linda began to say her part. Easy and I looked at each other for the briefest of moments, eye-to-eye above the small crowd, and then he turned back to smile for the cameras.
When I went to live in South Africa in November 2011, I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t reflect on it. My husband, Sam, then my fiancé, wanted to return on sabbatical to the country he had left at age eighteen, so I followed. Career-wise, I was untethered. Years earlier, I had published a light travel memoir to nobody’s notice, and since then I had no real writing prospects as far as I could tell. Every single article I pitched to magazines was rejected. I kept submitting short stories set in Montana to literary journal contests, in the hopes of winning $500, but I only came in as runner-up twice, so I actually lost money, since it usually cost $20 to enter. To make ends meet, I had taken to editing a celebrity doctor’s website, despite having no medical knowledge. If Sam wanted to move across the world, I had no argument against it.
Soon after Sam took off to find us a place in Cape Town, I sold the old SUV I’d had for years, moved my boxes to a storage locker in New Jersey, packed an oversized duffel bag full of clothes, forced my flailing dog into a travel-safe crate at the JFK cargo terminal, and hurtled fourteen hours across the ocean to Johannesburg. Sam met me at Arrivals. We planned to drive the nine hundred miles to Cape Town rather than put the dog on another connecting flight, so we rented a car and cut through the Karoo desert.
Karoo, which means “land of thirst” in the indigenous Khoikhoi language, is a vast, bleak scrubland that stretches through the country, searingly hot in the afternoon and cold as steel at night. Sheep roam across its inhospitable terrain, dotted with rugged little shepherds’ dwellings where young boys with hard feet spend months alone. I sat in the passenger seat and gazed out the window at the monotonous landscape. It looked like a place picked over, as if anything of value, anything lush or desirable or even a little bit sweet or pretty, had been collected by a determined band of looters sweeping across the plain, leaving behind only dry bush and dust. The N1 highway slices through that rugged expanse, wide and
“Amy was an accidental hero,” Nancy said.
Mzi’s hands were shaking. He looked down at them, and so did I.
“Her death was a Shakespearean tragedy!” Nancy said.
The old lady and the girl had hit up everyone, I noticed. Every lapel boasted a beaded pin and a cutout heart.
“Linda is strong, charismatic, beautiful,” Nancy said.
I looked around. I felt a surge of fury, inexplicable in its intensity. I moved closer to Mzi. In a few days, his great-aunt’s house would burn down, with his great-aunt inside. Just like his own mother’s house back in the old days of politics and firestorms, when the ANC kids in the neighborhood shot it full of lead and set it alight with petrol bombs. Now there was no liberation movement to blame, no just cause or grand scheme, no enemies intent on your demise. Just faulty wiring and cheap petroleum heaters. Mzi was listening intently to Nancy, his face set in that practiced flat expression of his, composed specifically to shroud the fact that he was almost always overwhelmed by various emotions.
Nancy praised Easy and Ntobeko. This was a story of “gentle forgiveness,” she said. “Of lived apology!”
When she finished her speech, the crowd applauded.
Linda stood before her guests. She looked for Easy and Ntobeko. Ntobeko was long gone, so she called for Easy. A sharp intake of breath, back straightened, and then he emerged from behind us and went to her. Easy hooked his arm in Linda’s and stood with her as a local reporter scribbled, a pair of student videographers filmed, the hometown newspaper photographer snapped away. Linda began to say her part. Easy and I looked at each other for the briefest of moments, eye-to-eye above the small crowd, and then he turned back to smile for the cameras.
When I went to live in South Africa in November 2011, I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t reflect on it. My husband, Sam, then my fiancé, wanted to return on sabbatical to the country he had left at age eighteen, so I followed. Career-wise, I was untethered. Years earlier, I had published a light travel memoir to nobody’s notice, and since then I had no real writing prospects as far as I could tell. Every single article I pitched to magazines was rejected. I kept submitting short stories set in Montana to literary journal contests, in the hopes of winning $500, but I only came in as runner-up twice, so I actually lost money, since it usually cost $20 to enter. To make ends meet, I had taken to editing a celebrity doctor’s website, despite having no medical knowledge. If Sam wanted to move across the world, I had no argument against it.
Soon after Sam took off to find us a place in Cape Town, I sold the old SUV I’d had for years, moved my boxes to a storage locker in New Jersey, packed an oversized duffel bag full of clothes, forced my flailing dog into a travel-safe crate at the JFK cargo terminal, and hurtled fourteen hours across the ocean to Johannesburg. Sam met me at Arrivals. We planned to drive the nine hundred miles to Cape Town rather than put the dog on another connecting flight, so we rented a car and cut through the Karoo desert.
Karoo, which means “land of thirst” in the indigenous Khoikhoi language, is a vast, bleak scrubland that stretches through the country, searingly hot in the afternoon and cold as steel at night. Sheep roam across its inhospitable terrain, dotted with rugged little shepherds’ dwellings where young boys with hard feet spend months alone. I sat in the passenger seat and gazed out the window at the monotonous landscape. It looked like a place picked over, as if anything of value, anything lush or desirable or even a little bit sweet or pretty, had been collected by a determined band of looters sweeping across the plain, leaving behind only dry bush and dust. The N1 highway slices through that rugged expanse, wide and
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