Sounds beautiful, Blue Reef. But there is no beach down there: no sun, no sugarcane, no banana palms. Just black like death. The lamps on the hard hats burn like fire.
He rolls the newspaper and runs his tongue along the edge.
– As you drop down miles and miles in the cage, the sun is a far memory. You wonder if you dreamed your boyhood herding cows under the sun. You wonder if you dreamed the green hills, for when you come up out of the black, the sun goes down. There is a bus to the barbed-wire compound for Zulus and another bus to the barbed-wire compound for us Xhosas.
One end of the cigarette he twists, the other end has tobacco dangling from it.
– Through the window of the bus the land is flat and foreign. No mountains or rivers or cow kraals. Just black-and-white roads, and the far orange glow of Jo’burg over the mine dumps.
Flecks of tobacco fall from the cigarette. A mossie lands to peck at the tobacco, then flits away. Moses lights the dangly end. It flares, then dwindles to a glow. It fires orange again when Moses sucks in.
– In the Transkei, as a man, you smoke a pipe and drink sour homemade beer at dusk, the time when boys steer the cows home and children chase chickens and the women make a fire. In the Transkei it is the magic time when voices carry across the valley and you can hear a dog bark miles away.
He sucks at the cigarette, and goes on while the smoke filters through his teeth:
– But in the compound at night the laughter of men who have escaped the black death another day is mixed with sad songs and the longing for women. When the revolution comes, the men joke as they rub away dirt with cold water: We gonna taxi to Hillbrow, drink Johnnie Walker on the rocks, see the girls shake their skinny white ass at us.
A gust of wind cartwheels a carton of Lucky Strikes down the street until a sackman spikes it. It reminds me of the way the skollies kill you in the township. Alleysharks hide bicycle spokes up their sleeves. You walk down an alley, whistling maybe, or just jingling the cents in your pocket. A spoke slides between your ribs like a blade through a watermelon. You may be tempted to laugh at the sudden blooming of a red rose on your shirt. So Hope tells it.
– My dream was not of whiskey and girls, but of Cape Town, sighs Moses. In my dream, I pick an orange, walk down to the sea and let cool water wash over my feet. I peel the skin, bite into the orange and the sweet juice fills my mouth. After a day in the night of the earth my Cape Town dream healed my dogtired bones.
The driver of a jam-packed taxi van calls out to Moses in Xhosa, all the while hooting at imaginary dogs. Without slowing down he twists his head around to keep Moses in sight, so the van runs blind. When the hub grazes the kerb, the driver swings his eltonjohn shades around to the road again. But just then a black girl goes by, swinging hips for all the world to see, and he twists his head to flick out a pink tongue through white teeth.
Cape Town. iKapa. Paradise. There is fruit and sand and sea, but the fruit farms lie inland. In Cape Town hawkers sell oranges by the sea, but the oranges come from Zebediela, up north. If you want to pick peaches or plums, Cape fruit, you have to dodge dogs and jump fences. It is even forbidden to pick up the fly-stung, windfall fruit. And, if you are black, you eat fruit on the tar kerb, as the beach sand lies beyond the signs that bark: Whites Only.
On the junkyard wall, jagged glass teeth glare in the sun like the cracked bottles on the walls of the Roeland Street jail in Cape Town. Roeland Street where, Oom Jan says, they lock up hoodlum coons. Roeland Street where jailbirds sing to the moon of sweethearts running around free: My geliefde hang in die bos, my geliefde hang in die bos, my geliefde hang in die bitterbessiebos.
Moses fishes in his deep pockets for the junkyard key.
Across the road Ou Piet Olifant stands on the veranda of the hotel, squinting his eyes at the
He rolls the newspaper and runs his tongue along the edge.
– As you drop down miles and miles in the cage, the sun is a far memory. You wonder if you dreamed your boyhood herding cows under the sun. You wonder if you dreamed the green hills, for when you come up out of the black, the sun goes down. There is a bus to the barbed-wire compound for Zulus and another bus to the barbed-wire compound for us Xhosas.
One end of the cigarette he twists, the other end has tobacco dangling from it.
– Through the window of the bus the land is flat and foreign. No mountains or rivers or cow kraals. Just black-and-white roads, and the far orange glow of Jo’burg over the mine dumps.
Flecks of tobacco fall from the cigarette. A mossie lands to peck at the tobacco, then flits away. Moses lights the dangly end. It flares, then dwindles to a glow. It fires orange again when Moses sucks in.
– In the Transkei, as a man, you smoke a pipe and drink sour homemade beer at dusk, the time when boys steer the cows home and children chase chickens and the women make a fire. In the Transkei it is the magic time when voices carry across the valley and you can hear a dog bark miles away.
He sucks at the cigarette, and goes on while the smoke filters through his teeth:
– But in the compound at night the laughter of men who have escaped the black death another day is mixed with sad songs and the longing for women. When the revolution comes, the men joke as they rub away dirt with cold water: We gonna taxi to Hillbrow, drink Johnnie Walker on the rocks, see the girls shake their skinny white ass at us.
A gust of wind cartwheels a carton of Lucky Strikes down the street until a sackman spikes it. It reminds me of the way the skollies kill you in the township. Alleysharks hide bicycle spokes up their sleeves. You walk down an alley, whistling maybe, or just jingling the cents in your pocket. A spoke slides between your ribs like a blade through a watermelon. You may be tempted to laugh at the sudden blooming of a red rose on your shirt. So Hope tells it.
– My dream was not of whiskey and girls, but of Cape Town, sighs Moses. In my dream, I pick an orange, walk down to the sea and let cool water wash over my feet. I peel the skin, bite into the orange and the sweet juice fills my mouth. After a day in the night of the earth my Cape Town dream healed my dogtired bones.
The driver of a jam-packed taxi van calls out to Moses in Xhosa, all the while hooting at imaginary dogs. Without slowing down he twists his head around to keep Moses in sight, so the van runs blind. When the hub grazes the kerb, the driver swings his eltonjohn shades around to the road again. But just then a black girl goes by, swinging hips for all the world to see, and he twists his head to flick out a pink tongue through white teeth.
Cape Town. iKapa. Paradise. There is fruit and sand and sea, but the fruit farms lie inland. In Cape Town hawkers sell oranges by the sea, but the oranges come from Zebediela, up north. If you want to pick peaches or plums, Cape fruit, you have to dodge dogs and jump fences. It is even forbidden to pick up the fly-stung, windfall fruit. And, if you are black, you eat fruit on the tar kerb, as the beach sand lies beyond the signs that bark: Whites Only.
On the junkyard wall, jagged glass teeth glare in the sun like the cracked bottles on the walls of the Roeland Street jail in Cape Town. Roeland Street where, Oom Jan says, they lock up hoodlum coons. Roeland Street where jailbirds sing to the moon of sweethearts running around free: My geliefde hang in die bos, my geliefde hang in die bos, my geliefde hang in die bitterbessiebos.
Moses fishes in his deep pockets for the junkyard key.
Across the road Ou Piet Olifant stands on the veranda of the hotel, squinting his eyes at the
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