SUSAN CHECKED HER DIARY again. She had a meeting with some Germans at ten o’clock. She’d tell Dipuo to hold all calls until then. Maybe she could get a little work done on the quarterly report for the department. Tumahole had offloaded it onto her as usual. She put the tea in the microwave. Not even enough time to let it steep. Peter sat at the table reading the morning paper. He’d already had some toast.
‘This is bullshit,’ he said.
She glanced over his shoulder at the article. ‘People Protest Water Cut-offs in the Eastern Cape,’ the headline read.
A photo showed the Mayor’s driveway littered with white plastic bags and empty dog-food cans. Water from a sprinkler was shooting into the sky. The writer went on to quote Monwabisi on how the prepaids were ‘undermining democracy in South Africa. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting thirsty.’
‘The man was an unemployed bum before we hired him,’ said Peter. ‘As soon as he got the job he started shooting off his mouth.’
‘Don’t make too much of it,’ said Susan. ‘We are a protesting nation.’
‘It’ll probably be on national TV,’ said Peter. ‘Look.’ He pointed to a TV cameraman in front of the Mayor’s house in the photo. He opened the paper to read the rest of the article. He tapped his finger on a page-five photo of Slim Yanta leading the crowd in some chant.
‘And to think I gave him money,’ said Peter. ‘I should have known better.’
‘Calm down,’ said Susan. ‘Tomorrow there will be a strike in Bloemfontein, a march to the housing office in Mmabatho. It’s business as usual here. Haven’t you figured that out yet?’ She got the cup out of the microwave, removed the tea bag and added a little milk. She hoped Peter would calm down.
‘I have to go to the Eastern Cape ASAP,’ he said. ‘To show we are behind Siziba 100 per cent. At least in Bulgaria people knew a good thing when they had it.’
Susan sat down and scribbled a reminder in her diary about getting a researcher to evaluate the impact of a gas-fired power station in Cape Town. It was time for the nation to move away from coal. She got up and gathered her bag and briefcase.
‘Can’t you see how wrong this is?’ said Peter. ‘The Mayor spent years on Robben Island. He’s a real gentleman.’
‘Siziba?’ she asked as she made her way towards the back door. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’
‘Well, you know what I mean,’ Peter said as he folded up the paper and stuck it in his jacket pocket. ‘And that Joanna. I can’t believe her.’ He followed Susan out the door.
‘Siziba used to donner people for disagreeing with him,’ she said. ‘He had to be disciplined twice by the ANC.’ She headed for the car, wondering if that gas-powered plant was realistic or just another consultant’s pipe dream. Peter was already off her radar.
‘At least he has some spine,’ Peter replied as she got into the Jetta. She waved goodbye without looking and he headed for his car. The driver reminded Susan to put on her seat belt as she pulled the draft of the quarterly report out of her bag. The drive would give her time to rework the executive summary.
She just wished Peter would stop being so critical, as if South Africans never got it right. And the way he slid into a panic over the most trivial issues was so annoying. There wasn’t even a gap in her diary for the next ten days to give her a moment to think about their relationship. Sometimes she wondered if she’d end up as a sort of trophy of Peter’s African adventure, her picture hanging like a kudu head over a mantelpiece in a New York flat. Relationships were hard even before she became a Deputy Minister. Now they seemed impossible.
She hoped he wouldn’t go jetting off to the Eastern Cape to confront Monwabisi. She had enough fires to put out already without adding one started by her boyfriend.