Afrika Read online

  For Lyndsey and Lauren

  CONTENTS

  1 Hello Afrika

  2 The Cottage and the Shack

  3 School

  4 Themba

  5 “I Can't Get that Woman's Crying Out of My Head”

  6 Cape of Storms

  7 Molo!

  8 The Fight

  9 Robben Island

  10 Karoo Train

  11 The Milky Way

  12 A Right to Know

  13 The Ark

  14 The Pencil Test

  15 Fire

  16 Lion's River

  17 “Themba Found Him”

  18 The Amnesty Hearing

  19 District Six

  20 Table Mountain

  21 Good-Byes

  Acknowledgments

  “Let's go,” said Kim as the plane came to a complete stop on the runway.

  Her mom, the sort who could not stay still for a moment, sat like a statue beside her. “I can't,” she said.

  Oh great, thought Kim. Passengers jumped to their feet and retrieved their belongings from the overhead bins. Out the airplane's cubbyhole window, Kim watched a staircase being pushed up against the plane. Sooner or later Kim and her mother would have to exit.

  “Riana,” Kim pleaded. She often called her mom by her first name, especially when she was trying to get her attention. “We have to go now.” From the pocket of her jean jacket Kim produced a chocolate bar and split it in two. She packed one half into her mouth and waved the other under her mother's nose.

  “I swore,” Riana said, ignoring the chocolate, “I would never set foot back here again.”

  Kim was itching to get off the plane. “Do we pack you off to the mental home or what?” Kim was trying to lighten up her mom's mood, but with the thick chocolate in her mouth, her words sounded more sarcastic than usual.

  She could not move until her mother got up from the aisle seat. Impatiently Kim folded away the dog-eared map that she had drawn of the plane's tedious nine-hour flight from western Canada to Britain. Tedious with a capital T. In London they had changed planes and a thick orange marker highlighted the final grueling twelve-hour stretch across Africa to Cape Town.

  Kim had scrawled Afrika across the bottom of the page. She had never set foot on this continent; she knew nothing of it except rare snippets from her mother and pictures from National Geographic, but she knew Africa was not spelled with a K. Still, for some reason the unfamiliar spelling looked right. At least to her blood-shot, jet-lagged eyes. She almost mentioned it to her mother, but Riana was beyond caring at this moment.

  Kim checked the deep pocket on the chair in front of her mom to make sure she had everything. “Mom, come on. We have to go.”

  Kim's mother was a journalist who had investigated many difficult events. She had gone to the Caribbean to cover the stories of people who had lost everything to hurricanes. She had written about survivors of shipwrecks and plane crashes. And she was good at her job. This was why her radio station had sent her to Africa to cover the Truth Commission. Riana could talk to anyone about anything. But whenever Kim questioned her about South Africa, her mother's country of birth, she clammed up as if she had seen a ghost. End of conversation.

  Kim tidied up her mom's stuff. Riana liked to wear cool, larger-than-life glasses and, even though she owned three pairs, she misplaced them often. “Remember, I didn't jump for joy about coming here either,” said Kim putting her mom's gaudy glasses back in their case.

  Even as she spoke these words Kim knew they weren't entirely true. At times she had been so excited about the trip to South Africa that she couldn't sleep. Travel meant adventure – and she loved adventure. Yet, in the three months they would be away from Canada, she would miss a great deal: her friends, her summer, and most of all her soccer games.

  Something had to happen soon. The stewardess was giving them the eye.

  Kim decided to try a different approach. “Uncle Piet might send out a search party.” Kim peeked across to see if she was getting through. “What about setting up your e-mail and reporting to your radio station?” She spit out every thought that flitted into her head. “What about Grandpa, the farm, the cousins?” she added.

  Had Riana heard her? She had heard all right. Riana pushed her smooth blonde hair back from her face to reveal trapped-animal eyes. “He won't come,” she whispered.

  “Who?” asked Kim.

  Riana's eyes contracted into an icy stare. “Your grandfather.”

  Kim decided to go easy. She was relieved to see that her mother was at least making an effort to put her book and glasses into her cloth slingbag. “Mom, remember the Cape of Good Hope?” Kim said gently. “Warm Indian Ocean on one side, cold Atlantic on the other? You promised to show me not one ocean, but two.”

  It worked! At the word ocean, Riana's eyes lit up. “Cape Town is the most beautiful city in the world,” she said, as she fished out their passports.

  In the terminal building a sandy-haired man waved fervently at them. “There's your uncle,” pointed Riana. Uncle Piet had short hair parted at the side, glasses, and a flushed, choirboy look. He wore a tracksuit and running shoes, and on his head was a lopsided Canadian baseball cap that slid even more lopsidedly as he squeezed Riana. By the time he got to Kim, the cap was dangerously close to his eyes. “I'm your Oom Piet,” he said, pounding Kim on the back as he embraced her.

  Great, thought Kim. His breath was a mixture of tobacco and peppermints.

  “Good flight?” He drew back and looked her over. Kim knew what he would see: a tall, thirteen-year-old girl with a frizzy mess of hair, because she had been too tired to brush it. What he couldn't see was how weird it felt to be here. Canada was the only home she'd ever known. And yet she had no relatives there. Uncle Piet was the first family member she had ever set eyes on.

  “It was okay, Ooo Piet,” she said taking a quick step back.

  “Oom Piet,” Riana corrected, smiling tightly at her brother.

  “She's going to be very tall,” he told Riana.

  Kim didn't like the way her uncle studied her from head to toe. But she liked it when he added, “She's not got your physique.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Riana, raking her fingers through her hair. Oom Piet had the same blond hair as Riana. Like her mom's, Piet's hair could be tamed with a moist comb. In total contrast, Kim's brown mop was so thick and fly-away, she could only control it with an extra wide elastic band, the kind that fastened hefty vegetables together in supermarkets.

  Half an hour later, they were strapped into Piet's Land Rover. It was a big vehicle, but Kim felt crowded by the luggage wedged at her feet. Plus, she shared her seat with an angular, sharp-eared dog. His breath smelled like fish and his hair was tangled with things from the bush. He used his large, yellow, prehistoric toenails to get at the twigs and insects that were living in his fur.

  “Bliksem!” Oom Piet yelled when the dog itched wildly with his back foot.

  The 4 × 4 snaked around a cliff-hugging road beside the sea. Cape Town was on the farthest tip of Africa – Afrika, as Kim now thought of it. “What do you think of our Mother City, Kim?” her uncle asked as he steered the car. “I'll take you on a little drive.”

  Kim squirmed and could not look out the window. The cliff was very steep. One mistake on the winding road and they would plunge headfirst into the sea.

  “I guess staying in Africa will make up for all the boring times I had growing up in Calgary.” Kim gripped her hands together and spoke to no one in particular. Beside her, Bliksem distracted himself with dog business – itching, drooling, and panting. Riana nodded vaguely, but her eyes did not stray from the ocean.

  Piet and Riana chatted together in Afrikaans, the language they had spoken as children. Kim knew it was a mixture of Dutch,
German, and other languages, but she did not understand a word of it. Unable to move her legs, she stretched her weary arms and hoped they were not talking about her. As if there wasn't already enough secrecy in her family she would now have to hear Afrikaans spoken around her, making more secrets, shutting her out. The only word she recognized was Melkweg, the name of Riana's family farm. Melkweg meant “Milky Way,” and Kim knew that the Milky Way Farm was located a long car ride from Cape Town, in the middle of the Karoo, an arid plateau where the night skies are clear and filled with stars.

  Kim listened to the strange language with its dry, harsh, scraping sounds. What if this language had been her mother tongue instead of English? If her mom had stayed in South Africa and not emigrated when she was pregnant with Kim, they would be living in Africa today and speaking this language as their own.

  Suddenly Oom Piet turned sharply from Riana and spoke in English. Had they been arguing? Or did he break into English because he remembered that Kim was alive and well and sitting in the backseat?

  “You must be careful,” Oom Piet told Riana. “You will make enemies.”

  Riana turned her nose up at this and said, “Piet, I think I know what I'm getting into.”

  “The Truth Commission is not accepted by everyone,” Piet responded. “Some see it as a witch hunt designed to stir up hatred.”

  When they were deciding to come to South Africa, Kim's mother had explained to her that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was controversial. Some people supported it and others did not. It was set up by the new government. The commission's job was to look at the injustices caused by the old system which had forcibly segregated the races of South Africa into Blacks, Whites, Indians, and Coloreds. But this was the first time that Kim realized that covering the commission might be risky for the journalists.

  Riana appeared to ignore Oom Piet's warning. Instead, she stared out the window at the sea and said, “Pull over, please.”

  Oom Piet steered his Land Rover to a lookout point high above the ocean. As soon as the car stopped, Riana bolted out and kicked off her shoes. Kim could not believe her eyes. She watched her mother whistle for Bliksem to join her, and the two of them darted toward the cliff edge. The sun was setting and Oom Piet suggested Kim watch the fiery colors from where she sat. In fact, her uncle wedged his arm across the backseat, between Kim and the car door, making her a prisoner there.

  “Give your ma a moment alone,” he commanded. “She's finally home.”

  Is he crazy? thought Kim. Home is Canada! Kim was exhausted from the two punishing flights, and her lips and throat were as parched as sand. What was her mother doing, standing there in bare feet, her fingers dangling behind the ears of a strange mutt? Was this the same mother who did not allow a single pet to share their Calgary house? And who did Piet think he was, fencing her in with his arm? His baseball cap had seen better days and, like Riana, he threw any old piece of clothing on his body. Now he took out his cigarette pack, and without asking Kim if she minded, lit a cigarette.

  Kim circled her tongue frantically around her mouth trying to locate one tiny glob of moisture. She hoped she wasn't getting sick. Her uncle's cigarette sucked all the air out of the Land Rover.

  Riana was taking a long time. Putting her chocolate-smeared fingers to her cheeks as if to cool herself, Kim spoke hurriedly: “Did you know my dad?”

  The question slid out as quickly as a snake's tongue. She had had no intention of asking Oom Piet about her father, but she had done it, almost against her own will.

  “My father,” she repeated.“Did you know him?”

  Oom Piet avoided looking at her by taking off his glasses and polishing them on his sweatshirt. She had caught him off guard, all right, and Kim knew that catching people off guard was the only way to get answers from them. If only he would give her some detail. But instead of responding to her question, he plunked his glasses back on his nose and gestured away from the sea toward the darkness on the other side of the road. “Look. Behind that cliff is our famous Table Mountain. Not a speck of snow on it. Not like your Rockies, hey.”

  Kim dug her fingers into the car seat in frustration. It was too late. Her mother and Bliksem were strolling back to the car. The discussion of her father was dead. For now.

  “You'll see a better view of it from the cottage,” added her uncle. “Some days clouds form like a tablecloth over its top. They say you can read the weather by it.”

  Bliksem leaped into the backseat, swishing his dragon tail this way and that until he got comfortable. “I'm dying of thirst,” Kim said as her mom climbed into the front seat.

  “Darling, you had some juice on the plane,” Riana mumbled, her mind obviously still on the ocean.

  “My girl,” said Oom Piet, his cigarette between his lips. “Would you like a peppermint?”

  “No,” Kim mumbled and pressed herself into the seat. The warm fish-breeze of Bliksem's breath made Kim blink.“No, thank you,” she added grimly.

  Oom Piet pulled his vehicle back onto the road. “We're almost there,” he said. “The cottage is small, but cozy. It's Victorian. Over a hundred years old.”

  Kim glared at the back of her mother's head. It drove her crazy that Riana would not talk to her about her father. The only detail Riana had revealed was this: he was South African too. As if Kim hadn't put two and two together! Then, the day after Riana had accepted this assignment, she presented Kim with a flimsy notebook that had belonged to her father.“This is the last thing he ever gave me,” Riana had said. “He wanted to be a writer.”

  Kim couldn't wait to be alone with the notebook. A few minutes later she was sitting by the lamp in her bedroom, leafing through the scribble. Guess what! The notebook was illegible – written in a language she could not decipher. Eventually, Kim gave up, placed the notebook under her mattress, and tried to forget about it. Yet when she packed for the three-month trip to Africa, Kim put the notebook in her carry-on luggage, not allowing it to be away from her in the belly of the plane.

  Riana glanced at Kim through the rearview mirror and then dreamily gazed out the window.

  “Where is my father?” Kim mumbled. She mouthed the words into the soft place between her fingers where she could smell the chocolate from the airplane. Of course, no one heard her.

  Outside Kim and Riana's cottage, plant creepers and fig-leaf fingers shimmered in the moonlight. Beside the front door, which Oom Piet unlocked, stood a high white trellis, at the bottom of which were the cut-off wooden stalks of roses.

  “Hey, it's dark,” said Kim, shivering.

  “Those Victorians knew something all right,” Oom Piet said, as they stepped inside. “Small windows hold the warmth in winter and shut out the hot sun in summer.”

  The house was not very big, but the rooms felt spacious because of the high ceilings. The cottage had a roof made of tin and the walls were thick and cream-colored. It reminded Kim of a gingerbread house. In the main room the shelves sagged with the weight of books and shells and carvings of zebras and giraffes. At one end of the room was a cast-iron fireplace with a rectangular chimney. Behind the screen, a fire was burning.

  “So, you like it?” asked Piet. The skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled.

  “Yes,” said Kim. A deep sense of relief filled her. After so many hours to get here, and her mother's unnerving reluctance when the plane landed, the small house was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen.

  “We rescued this cottage from ruin about twelve years ago,” he said. “We usually rent it to tourists. But it's winter. You still thirsty?”

  “Yes,” said Kim as she left the fireplace and followed her uncle through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the living room.

  “How about that?” said Piet, opening the fridge. “Guava juice.” He handed Kim a Tetra Pak.

  “Buy a donkey,” answered Kim. Baie dankie was “thank you very much” in Afrikaans, one of the few expressions she had mastered as a child.

  Pi
et and Riana exchanged smiles as Kim sucked up the thick, unfamiliar juice. Then Riana unloaded her coat, purse, and the contents of her sling bag onto the middle of the wobbly, wooden kitchen table.

  “The cottage is perfect,” said Kim and her mother at the same time. Amazing. They both agreed, for once.

  Oom Piet looked relieved. “The garden is huge,” he said. “For a large part of the year there are lemons on that tree and the wild fennel grows as high as your head.”

  Kim moved to the back of the kitchen. Piet showed her how the garden door opened – in half, upper and lower – like a stable door. Then he unlocked a set of burglar bars outside it. In the garden ferns and fig trees glistened in the moonlight and shivered all the way back to the neighbor's wall. Kim blinked her tired eyes. They were playing tricks on her. She thought she saw a flat-roofed shack in the far corner of the yard.

  Oom Piet took a gum packet out of his pocket and, after offering some to Kim and Riana, folded a stick into his mouth. “When must I tell Pa you'll be coming to the farm?” he asked, relocking the bars.

  “I don't know,” Riana said quickly. She had refused the gum and was shifting through her stuff on the table.

  Chewing, Uncle Piet said, “I could fetch you and Kim next weekend.”

  Riana looked tense. This was definitely not a conversation she wanted to have, but Piet pushed on. “Come now, Riana,” he said. “There's always the weekend following.”

  Riana inhaled sharply. “No, Piet, I have to work.” Oom Piet chewed in silence, then fumbled for his cigarettes, but thankfully did not take one out. Kim continued to stare out into the yard. Not only was there a shack at the bottom of the garden, but a light flickered inside it – an unsteady light like that of a candle. The shadow of a figure moved past the window. “Who's that?” Kim asked.

  “That's Lettie,” her uncle said. He turned to Riana.“You remember Lettie from the farm. When I bought this cottage I asked her to move down to take care of it. She agreed. She said her children could get a better education in Cape Town.”

  Riana's mouth opened and her eyes lit up. “Lettie Bandla?” she gasped.