Innocent, Philani, and me—flying in a taxi—stuffed between thirteen other men and women going to Johannesburg.
When we stop in the town of Musina, Philani takes us to a two-for-the-price-of-one PEP store with nice, nice clothes.
“If we’re going to Jozi, we’ve got to look sharp. It’s time to throw these clothes away and buy what you like,” he says as we wander through the shop, dazed at the quality and variety of the clothes.
“We get one free?” asks Innocent, holding up a T-shirt.
“That’s how it works here, boys. Two for the price of one rules!”
We buy new shirts, jeans, shoes. I throw away my old clothes right there and then. Philani laughs at us and rolls his eyes at the shop person as we go in and out of the changing room with piles of clothes.
“Now you boys are ready for Jozi,” he says as we leave the shop, swinging our bags of clothes.
The Soutpansberg Mountains are forgotten; the rows of red tomatoes forgotten; the boys of Khomele village forgotten. Philani does all the talking as the countryside whizzes past. All we do is stare at things I could never have imagined: wide, wide roads with five lanes packed with so many shiny, smart cars. Roads built in the sky with lights. Long two-lane tunnels right through a mountain.
At the next stop, a place called Louis Trichardt, Philani takes us into a clean, clean shop with loud music where every shelf is packed with sweets, chocolates, nuts, chewing gum. Big loaves of white bread twice the size we get in Zimbabwe. We gawk at the women who drink beer, smoke cigarettes, talk as loudly as men, and wear modern clothes that no woman from Gutu would wear.
“In South Africa anything is possible. You can be poor one day, and a multimillionaire the next day. Look. Saturday’s lotto draw is ten million rand! Ten million rand!” he says and shows us how to play.
And it’s true. The board says I can win ten million rand on Saturday. I can’t even do the math as to how many gazillions of dollars that would be in Zimbabwe.
“Choose six numbers, Innocent, and you can be a millionaire. Fill in the square, pay twenty rand, and we wait for the draw on Saturday night. You’ve got lucky rubbed on your forehead. I can see it.
“Give me another twenty rand, Deo, and you can play too. Hey, maybe all three of us should play? That gives us three chances of winning. Give me another twenty rand, and I’ll also try. I’ll keep all the tickets for us. If one of us has the lucky number we all share. Cool? Cool.”
And that’s Philani’s new deal. It sounds like he knows what he is doing. So I give him sixty rand, choose my numbers, and watch how they are entered into a machine.
“We’re going to be millionaires this weekend,” he says, kissing the tickets and stuffing them into his pocket.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
In Mokopane Philani shows us how to order finger-licking chicken and Fanta Grape. “Order whatever you want, Innocent. Look at those pictures—doesn’t it make your stomach grumble? A streetwise deal gets you two chicken pieces, chips, and a cool drink. What do you want, Deo?”
I can’t believe how easy it is. The photos seem so real, you can almost taste the food. Behind the counter men and women in smart uniforms are busy cooking, packing, and selling. People are lining up and giving orders, and moments later they walk out of the shop with brown paper bags of chicken and fries. It’s all so quick, so easy. Philani calls it “fast food,” and I can see why.
“That will be forty-four rand, Deo. Give me that fifty-rand note—that will be enough. You don’t need the silver change—those coins aren’t worth much. What a bargain, hey? This is much better than tomatoes on the farm.”
And Philani is right. The food is delicious. I’ve never tasted anything so good. Innocent grins as he licks his fingers.
“It’s like the sign says, finger-licking good. Can I have some more, Deo?”
And I buy three more boxes of streetwise chicken, the best meal I have ever had.
After hours and hours on the road, my stomach full and my eyes tired from seeing so much, I fall asleep in the taxi. Innocent leans against the window and snores quietly, his Bix-box lying loosely in his lap. I rest my head against his shoulder, and soon I am dreaming.
I wake up only for a moment as the taxi goes over a bump in the road, and I see a sign flash by: WARMBATHS 10 KM.
Warmbaths. Sounds like a nice place. I wouldn’t mind a warm bath. As I start to drift off to sleep again, I overhear the people behind me talking quietly.
“We can’t do business with these people, because today he calls himself Abdul, and tomorrow he is Muhammed.”
“I know what you mean. The Somalis are Arabs and Muslims, and those countries have lots of money, and they help only their countrymen.”
“While our own country does nothing to help us.”
“They should put those Somalis in camps and send them back.”
“These refugees are causing too much trouble.”
“Too much trouble.”
My dreams take over, and I am far away again.
I wake up to shiny, tall glass buildings piercing the sky.
And lights—a blinking, dazzling, never-ending stream of lights—so many lights it makes my head dizzy. We tumble out of the taxi and look around at the night, which is almost as bright as day. Thick, big buildings have eaten up all the trees and grass, and the thousands of people are talking, shouting, moving in every direction.
Jozi.
I don’t know where to look first. The city is all around me, noisy, sparkling, and overwhelming. Next to the Nelson Mandela Bridge there is a giant soccer ball—the largest soccer ball I have ever seen.
“What’s that?” I ask Philani.
“You don’t know about the soccer World Cup? All the nations of the world will come here to play.”
Of course I knew about the World Cup, but not that it was happening here, in South Africa!
Innocent is holding my hand tightly and has the index finger of his left hand pressed into his ear.
“There is a storm coming, Deo,” he says, shaking his head as if there is an insect crawling around inside. “There’s a storm coming. I can feel it.”
Innocent does this sometimes. He feels the weather change. He can tell us about a storm days before it arrives. Grandpa Longdrop said that Innocent was our own weather satellite, and he was more trustworthy than any radio weather reports. He walks around now with his fingers in his ears, looking miserable.
“Stay close to me,” I whisper to him. “Philani will take us to his home. Don’t worry about the storm.”
There is something wrong with Philani. He is irritated. He is not so talkative now and glances back at us as we follow him to the next taxi stand.
“We need to take another taxi to Alexandra,” he says, holding his hand out for more money. I am too tired to ask any questions, so I hand him some notes.
We climb into another taxi. Now no one talks as we speed through the night. This driver seems to be in a great hurry. He doesn’t stop at the red lights, and the other passengers in our taxi shout at him and he shouts back. He blasts the horn and flashes his lights at cars in his way. He seems angry and overtakes on corners. I close my eyes, not wanting to see the big truck crash into us. The passengers shout at him. He doesn’t answer them but just goes faster.
Innocent is in the back corner with his eyes closed and both his fingers pressed into his ears.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” asks Philani when we get out of the taxi and walk along the dark streets of Alexandra.
“Nothing. I think he’s a little scared. He’ll be okay,” I say, staring at the crush of shacks and huts, packed closely to one another. We have left the road and walk down narrow alleyways, following Philani through the heart of this township called Alexandra. He walks fast. Every so often he turns around to check that we are still following him.
A gunshot makes me jump. Screams and angry voices follow.
“Come on,” says Philani, and he starts running. It’s hard to keep up. It’s almost like he’s running away from us. The doors of the shacks are closed; curious faces appear in the windows.
Philani is more than irritated. He is upset, almost angry. He stops before a small shack stuffed between two other huts at the end of a pathway. Inside is light, and people are moving about. He looks at us nervously and then looks back at the hut.
“Wait here,” he commands and calls to someone. The door is opened by a man who stares briefly at Philani before slapping him across the face. It happens so suddenly that I’m not even sure I saw it. Philani is crying now, holding his cheek and backing away. He points to us and talks in a rush of a language I do not understand. The man comes out of the house to glare at us.
This is not going well. Innocent slips behind me and searches for my hand. The man looks very unhappy. I don’t like the look of him at all.
“Come here,” he says, and I step forward. Will he slap me too?
“Philani says you paid for him to come back from Musina. Is that right?”
I nod. Philani has disappeared into the hut, and there is a lot of noise of “look who’s here” and “Philani’s back” coming from inside.
“He says you need a place to sleep for one night?”
“I thought that…” I do not finish.
“You can sleep at the back here, but tomorrow when I wake up, you’re gone. We don’t want any refugees here. Understand?”
I nod again. What can I say to this big, angry man? I want to speak to Philani, but he’s inside. The man takes us around to the back. He unlocks a small shed and turns on the light. The shed is packed with parts of cars, old batteries, and exhaust pipes. Tires are stacked in a pile in one corner.
“Don’t touch anything, or I’ll beat the crap out of you” is all the man says before he closes the door. I hear him lock the padlock. We are prisoners in his shed.
Innocent looks very upset, like he’s going to cry. His finger is pressed deeply into his right ear.
“I want to go back to the Flying Tomato Farm, Deo. Why are we here?” he says.
I cannot bear the accusation in his voice.
“Do you think I planned this?” I ask. “Do you think this is what I expected? Philani said that we would be given a place to sleep. I didn’t know it would be on the floor of a garage.”
I kick angrily at a tire that is lying around.
“But where are we going to sleep, Deo? At the Flying Tomato Farm…”
“We are not at the farm anymore, Innocent. We are here in Jozi.”
Innocent looks up at me for the first time. “But I don’t like this place, Deo. It’s not very friendly. The people speak a different language. They look at me funny.”
“Because you are funny!” I shout at him. “You walk around with your fingers in your ears, holding on to your stupid cereal box. Talking like a baby. Don’t you see? That’s why people look at you. You’re funny to look at, funny boy!”
The words come out harder than rocks, sharper than nails. Innocent dips his head as if he is being beaten. He doesn’t look at me but shakes his head and walks quickly to the far corner of the shed. He stumbles over some junk and falls to the ground. He drops his Bix-box and some of his treasure falls out.
I want to help him up, but I don’t.
With one finger still pressed into his ear, he picks up his stuff and carefully puts everything back into his tin box.
He’s sobbing. “It’s not Innocent’s fault. The doctor is the one you must speak to. It’s not my fault he went to sleep,” he says, gulping air between sobs.
He closes the lid of his Bix-box and walks to the pile of tires, where he sits down with his back to me. “The doctor made a mistake. It’s his fault. Not Innocent. Shouting at me is not right. Amai does not like that. Grandpa Longdrop will be angry with you when I tell him. I didn’t do anything to you.”
I hold back the scream of anger. I shouted at Innocent because of how people looked at me.
I was scared when we arrived in Jozi, scared in the taxi, scared when we ran through the township to Philani’s home, scared of the man in the doorway who slapped Philani. I am scared now, so I shouted at Innocent.
Suddenly, I’m so tired. I want to sleep. I pull tires from the pile and arrange them into some sort of bed. I stuff clothes into my soccer pouch to make a pillow. Innocent ignores me. I lie down on the tires, arrange my soccer-pillow behind my head, and stare up at the ceiling. “Zero-two-one-eight-five-six-one-two-four-two,” I say quietly. “No, that’s not right.” I say another string of numbers to myself. “No, that’s not right either. How can I be so stupid to forget such an important number?” I speak out loud another series of numbers and glance over at Innocent. I know he is listening. “It’s no good. I just don’t have the brains for this. How am I supposed to find Dad if I can’t even remember his number? I’m stupid. If only I had remembered to write it down. If only I had a brain clever enough to remember numbers. Now I’m never going to be able to phone him. If only I could remember the number,” I say, telling myself off.
“Zero-two-one-six-five-eight-three-two-one-four,” says Innocent quietly. “It’s not difficult, Deo. You just have to let the numbers talk to you. They organize themselves in your head. You shouldn’t try so hard.”
“Okay, come and lie here next to me and tell me how you do it,” I say.
He gets up and comes over next to me.
Innocent repeats the phone number of our father’s work. “Now you say it and try and listen to the numbers.”
I repeat the correct number slowly.
“You see, you’re not dumb, Deo.”
“Thank you, Innocent. And you’re not funny either.”
“I know that. But you are,” he says, and I hear a joke creeping into his voice. “We have a place that gives us food and a bed and money every month, but my little brother doesn’t want that place. That’s funny.”
“You’re right, Innocent,” I say, laughing. “I’m the one who’s funny. Not you.”
“Okay. You’re the funny boy, not me. No, not Innocent.”
Innocent is happy now, my angry words forgotten. And we go to sleep, with peace between us, until we are woken in the morning by the sound of the door being unlocked and a gruff, unfriendly voice telling us to get our things, leave, and never come back.