We’re the only Europeans here and people are looking at us. I follow Nessie to the back of the hall where a woman is selling beer at a table.
‘Coke or birthday beer?’ Nessie yells at me.
‘Birthday beer!’ I shout back.
She smiles as she hands me a Lion. I down half of it in one and begin to chill out almost immediately. Nessie turns as a man clamps his hand on her shoulder. She gives him a hug. He whispers something in her ear. I’ve never seen a white person hug a black person before.
‘This is my niece Jayne,’ Nessie says, ‘she’s fourteen tomorrow. Nessie this is Patrick.’
Patrick is dressed in checked tan and brown trousers and purple t-shirt with peaked cap.
‘Ah. Old enough to be married,’ Patrick says. ‘Do you like our chimurenga music?’
‘Ja, I think so, I’ve never heard it before.’ I smile at Patrick. He looks nothing like his red-hair-and-freckles European name.
‘Come, let us sit. Let us drink!’ he says.
We squeeze our way through sweaty people and tables to the other side of the room, where men and teenage boys sit with a few women. I recognise the woman from University College who was chatting to Nessie when Mom dropped me off last year. Her hair is no longer close-cropped. She has allowed it to turn into an Afro. Bright red lipstick and gold-hooped earrings make her look like an American singer. She’s magnetic.
‘Nessie!’ she waves. ‘Raised Fist was just telling me about some very interesting developments,’ she says, her graceful hands conducting the air around her. Nessie leans over the table to talk to her. Some of the men and teenage boys look at me and make comments. A tall young man has his back to me. His back, triangular and muscled under its red t-shirt looks vaguely familiar. He takes a final sip of Coke and then turns to put his empty bottle on the table. As he does so, I see the side of his face, the unmistakable rounded sweep of cheekbone, the curved wing of the nostril. A flash of black eye catches mine. Looking down, I touch Nessie’s arm to get her attention as my legs begin to shake. She turns for a second and then goes back to her conversation. I want to run, but where would I run to? I pull her by the leather belt of her jeans.
‘Just a sec Jay. This is important.’
Anger pours through me like molten lava. Finishing the rest of my beer quickly, I put the bottle on the table. I feel him coming towards me and I don’t know what to do. Man! Anything could happen to me here. I even consider ducking under the table. When I turn and look up, he’s standing right beside me.
‘Jayne,’ he says.
My heart does the rubber-ball. He’s wearing black suit trousers with a Coca-Cola t-shirt and sandals made out of rubber. He’s so good looking that I can’t keep my eyes on him and my gaze keeps sliding to the ground.
‘Hi Enoch. I never thought I’d see you again.’ The words come from a tin can body. He looks the same, only wider, taller, deeper.
‘Why do you say this?’ He looks amused, as if he’s laughing at me, which strengthens my anger.
‘Why do you think?’ We have to lean in close, to make ourselves heard above the music. My face is heating up, I’m glad it’s dark in here.
‘When did you leave the PV?’ I shoot the words out and I’m glad I have, otherwise I might never have said them.
He laughs and I lean in to hear his reply, my cheek touching his for a second
‘As soon as I was able.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ A quick look in his eye, there is no guilt there, only softness, even kindness. But the softness makes my inner metal harden.
‘Sometimes, Jayne, something happens and then you are not on your own terms.’
Riddles. For a moment I focus on his long-fingered hands taking out a Madison from the red and white packet and putting it between his lips.
‘Well whose terms are you on? Justice’s? I thought you were better than that?’
‘How can one be better than another?’ He folds his arm and cocks his head slightly as he looks me up and down.
‘By making the right decisions,’ I take a step backwards and he smiles. The friends that he had been chatting to a little while ago glance in our direction.
‘Have you made the right decisions?’ He leans his head forwards slightly.
‘I can’t. I’m too young.’
He puts his hands on my shoulders. It’s a shock because he always avoided touching me in the past.
‘You are never too young to make the right choices if you can think. If you cannot think, then you must stay with another’s choices.’
His face is very close to mine and the warmth of his hands is distracting me.
‘Must I betray my own people?’ he slides his hands down my upper arms.
‘When you betrayed me I had to deal with your choices,’ I say, jerking my arms free. I thump Nessie on the back. ‘I want to go.’
He puts his cigarette back in his mouth. ‘What is it like to no longer be in the mountains?’ he asks.
‘It’s hell, thanks.’
‘Yes,’ he says, tipping his head back and exhaling his cigarette smoke straight upwards, ‘we are on even ground in that case. Now we must all find a way out of this hell.’
‘You take everything I say and use it to make a point. It’s quite annoying you know,’ I say, snatching his cigarette from his hands and putting it between my own lips.
He laughs, and as he does, he catches the eye of one of his friends who calls him with a movement of his head.
Nessie breaks away from her conversation and straightens back up, ‘Hi Enoch,’ she says, as if she saw him yesterday, which maybe she did.
The music is screaming in my head. Nessie’s friend comes over.
‘Oh, Grace, this is my niece Jayne. She loves the music.’
Watching the edges of her hair gleam in the bluish light, I say nothing. She’s like a more beautiful version of Donna Summer.
‘He’s singing about the government,’ Grace yells at me, her warm breath musky in my ear. ‘He says Ian Smith is like a hyena searching in the bush for dead meat.’
I wish she wouldn’t bloody speak. She’s so much better just to watch. She whispers something in Enoch’s ear and they both laugh.
‘A drink?’ Grace asks us.
‘A beer would be great,’ Nessie says. ‘Jay?’
‘A beer would be great,’ I say sarcastically. Feeling Enoch’s eyes on me, I put the hood of my tracksuit up.
He laughs. ‘And now you are a child again. When did you begin drinking beer?’
‘When did you become a terrorist?’ I say looking past him at a woman dancing with her back to a man who is bending over her shoulders, his head hovering over her bouncing chest.
‘I am not a terrorist,’ he says.
‘A moriba? I mean a mujiba then?’
He laughs at my mispronunciation.
‘I want to bring freedom.’
I laugh sarcastically.
‘You think it’s funny. Do you think it is only for whites to be politicians?’
I feel bad. Everything I say is the wrong thing or means something else to him.
‘How you gonna do that?’ I ask, folding my arms, feeling stupid. But he does look more like a footballer than a would-be politician.
He folds his arms in a mocking way. ‘Just like a white madam,’ he laughs.
‘I’m not a white madam.’ I glare at him, but then look away. His eyes are too dark and full of movement. In them are negatives of all that he has seen and done.
‘You want to hit me,’ he smiles. ‘Come, here.’ He bends down so that his face is near mine and taps his jaw with his fingers. ‘Hit me and then we can be friends again.’
‘How did you know I wanted to hit you?’
‘I know you. For a long time we were friends.’
‘But we’re not friends now are we?’
‘Why? I am your friend. I like you. You are pretty now.’
Embarassed, I scan the room. Man. Where’s Nessie disappeared to? At a table not far from us, a man is watching me with a lion’s stare. The men who Enoch was talking to earlier, train their eyes on me; they are dressed in t-shirts and trench coats; one of them has sunglasses halfway down his nose, another wears a trilby hat. Enoch raises an arm at them and they nod, continuing to look.
‘Who are they?’
‘Friends. Maybe they are friends.’
‘Ja. Maybe not.’ Do they all dress like that? Arms folded, I shift my body sideways to him.
Enoch laughs. ‘I like this new Jayne.’
Nessie and Grace arrive back with the drinks. In the time it takes for Grace to hand me my beer, Enoch disappears. Grace goes back to her seat between a couple of other men and a woman wearing a grey jumpsuit and a black cap.
‘Can I smoke?’ I ask Nessie.
‘If it’ll put a smile on your dial,’ she digs in her bag for her smokes, then lights a couple of Madisons and places one in my lips.
‘What do you think?’
‘That you’re crazy.’
‘Aren’t you pleased to have seen him?’
‘No.’
‘He’s good-looking isn’t he?’ She smiles.
‘No.’Yes. Crowding for room in my mind, conflicting thoughts about him, bite each other’s butts.
She puts her arm around me, ‘Come, let’s go get into the music.’
We make our way through the crowd towards the band. I notice that the three scary-looking men have vanished too. I look for Enoch amongst the group he was standing with, but can’t see him. The crowd around the band has thickened, and the air is cloudy with dagga smoke and the sharp oniony smell of sweat. Mel would say it smells like munts. The thought of the shock if Mel or anyone else I knew found out about me being here make me almost laugh out loud.
‘That’s better,’ Nessie shouts, pulling my hood back. ‘You’re beautiful when you smile.’
He said I was pretty, and he acknowledged our friendship, these thoughts make me feel high, but then I think back to the farm and I come back down with a thud. Pulling my hair around my cheeks even though it’s too dark to see their redness, I search the crowd for him.
Patrick comes over.
‘Let’s dance Nesta! Can your Jayne dance?’ He smiles at me. ‘If she can drink, she must dance!’
Nesta?
Nessie pulls me by the shoulders into the crowd. Bodies and music swirl together, making me move from side to side, pressing against me. My head is warm and fuzzy. Nessie takes my hands and moving her hips, and gesturing with her eyes, shows me her moves. – Emily is married with three children. She is working on her second novel and keeps a blog called EM_PHATIC http://www.emilybarroso.com/
Post published in: Arts