Jaz & Miguel (13 page)

But sitting with him now, she suddenly felt ... shallow. She felt as
if her life, up to this point, all eighteen years of it, had meant nothing. She
ran through the memories in her mind and looked at all those afternoons in the
mall—those afternoons wasted on sipping coffees—and what did she have to show
for it?

"It changes you—this program, I mean," she said.

"Yeah? In what way?" he replied, chewing on the rump steak
he'd ordered.

"I don't know. It just ... makes you think about things ...
about life and who you are. What your purpose is."

He stared at her, his chewing paused for a second. Then he
continued.
"That's not the
program, Jaz. That's Africa—the good
and
the bad."

She frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

"You like this place?" He indicated the restaurant with
his eyes.

She looked around. Never had she been to something so quaintly
romantic. "Of course. It's ... adorable."

"So do I, but if we'd be sitting at another place about two houses
up from here, we'd be accosted by about three beggars in ten minutes asking for
a Rand or two. Do you know how much a Rand is in dollars?"

Jaz shook her head.

"Well, it's not much—it's hardly anything. You can't see this
stuff day in and day out and think that all of life is just dandy because—I
don't know—because Google invented the internet or something."

She laughed ... but only a little. "Google didn't invent the
internet."

"I know."

She smiled, but sadly, and shook her head.
"You're right. It's not the program."

"So that's the bad part. Now the good part. Did you like seeing
the sunrise at the kloof? Or hearing the baboons while we slept in Rustenburg?
Or listening to that Sangoma talk about
ancestors
and things."

Jaz felt her cheeks go warm, feeling he was referring to her own
experience now. "Yeah," she said, looking down.

"It's fucking breathtaking—all this stuff—isn't it? And you
haven't even been on a safari yet. Imagine sitting on a truck, a lion about twenty
meters away from you—"

Jazz frowned.

"—twenty meters, that's like sixty feet or something. Oh, and a
kilometer is like zero-point-six miles. I googled it!"

"Ah!" she said.

"So, you're on this truck, lion there, a herd of zebras in the
distance. And you wait, and wait, and
bam!
Once, we were all on safari—my
family and I—and this lion killed a zebra—jaws right to the neck! It was so
close to us that you could smell the stench—"

Jaz stopped chewing.

"Oh … sorry."

She waved her hands. "No, it's fine."

"Well you get the point, right?"

She nodded. Miguel's face had broken a smile, like there was nothing
else in the world but the two of them and that story. "You really love
this place, don't you? Africa, I mean," she asked.

"Don't
you
?"

"God!" Jaz exhaled in confusion. "It's so hard to
tell, you know? I mean, it's beautiful—you know—all those things you say, and
which we saw. I mean—cheetahs for God's sake! But then …."

"Then there's the ugly part. I know. "

A wave of negative emotion hit her like a fist, as if all the joy
they'd called up had suddenly been washed out to sea.

"It's almost like," she said, trying to figure it out as
she spoke, "like … I mean, all this beauty and then … all this pain."

"But the pain is not Africa. The pain is poverty. The Brazilian
ghettos have the same problem. So does the US at the end of the day, doesn't
it? Except they use guns there instead of machetes (actually, they use guns
here as well). But you get the point."

"Would you ever … consider leaving?"

"You haven't seen
Blood Diamond
, have you?"

"Of course I have!" She didn't tell him that she'd seen
every DiCaprio movie ever made.

"Ahh, Leo, huh?"

She blushed.

"Well, you heard what they said. You never leave Africa once you've
lived in it—something like that.
Your
heart will also never leave it—you
wait and see."

He had a point about her heart. But it wouldn't be Africa that it
would be caught in when she left.

"Miguel?"

"Uh-oh, this sounds serious."

It was serious—well, only a little. And she couldn't believe she was
going to just go out and say it. But it was true that she would go in December,
and she'd already lost so much time with him by beating around the bush (or—being
in South Africa—the
bushveld
). She couldn't lose any more time. And if
they declared their feelings for each other, surely they'd find a way.

Isn't that how it always went, in all those stories she'd read and
those movies she'd seen?

"Miguel, I—I think I might be … falling … for you." She
looked away, her heart suddenly racing like galloping horses. She couldn't
believe she'd just laid herself bare like that!

There was silence. "You sure that's not the wine talking?"
he joked.

Jaz fidgeted with her napkin at her lap, and shook her head. Why had
he not said something else yet? She'd pushed it too far. She'd said something
she shouldn't have.

Stupid!

"Well, consider yourself lucky
,"
he finally uttered. "Because I'm not fall
ing
for you at all. I fell
down the kloof weeks ago, banged my head on the rocks, and I'm riding down the
gushing waters just trying to hold onto something that will explain what I've
been feeling for you ever since then."

Jaz smiled, her skin flushing with the heat of an emotion that had suddenly
swept over her but which she couldn't yet name.

"In other words, Jaz, I fell for you a
long
time ago."

She slid her hand over to meet his on the table.

Words tried to form on her lips that she so desperately wanted to
say to him, since that day on the bus; but she would not say them now.

Not yet.

After dinner they walked to a place called Catz Pyjamas (basically,
a bar which served food) which stayed open all night. Jaz couldn't believe how
busy it was at ten p.m.—and on a weeknight! There must've been forty tables
(including the ones on the terrace) and all of them were taken. Glass doors
that were able to slide all the way open or closed led out into that terrace.
Finally, after skipping an opening outside because Jaz was too cold, a table
freed up inside. 

Miguel had told her earlier that Melville was one of those (as he'd
put it) "artsy-fartsy" kinds of areas where it wasn't unusual to catch
a whiff of
zol
(marijuana) in the air. Not
knowing what that smelled like, Jaz had not really been able to tell if anyone
had been smoking it on their way there.

Catz Pyjamas was a melting pot of clothing styles and
characters—everything from fishnet stockings and Goth to orange hair and nose
rings, even things as unexciting as polo shirts and slacks. You couldn't
categorize the people in this place at all—about the only thing they all had in
common was that none of them seemed to want to go home.

As if the place wasn't already loud enough with all the talking, at
around eleven p.m. a live band arrived and started playing something between trippy
house, jazz and rock ballads.
Jaz had had three glasses
of wine at dinner and, earlier, had felt a little tipsy, but now she was just
starting to feel tired—which irritated her because she didn't want to go to
sleep. She forced her eyes open as the music played but soon it proved too
much.
She let her head fall on Miguel's shoulder,
finally giving in to the weight of her eyelids. She sat like that awhile, aware
only of her head moving in sync to his breathing.

Whether he'd planned it, or whether it simply occurred, it didn't
matter, because before Jaz knew it—her mouth tasting of cotton and her eyes
bleary from sleep—Miguel's index finger was suddenly underneath her chin, raising
her head up. And when she finally opened her eyes, his lips were almost to
hers, his eyes closing as he moved in forward.

Jaz's breath caught.

She felt her skin go hot despite the drop in temperature and the
gust of wind from the open terrace doors. She wiped her palms on her dress and
brought them up to Miguel's cheeks, moving into him, unable to get to him soon
enough.

Their lips met.

All sound stopped.

For a moment, Jaz was paralyzed, her hands hanging motionless by his
cheeks as his lips caressed hers. Then his hands came up to meet hers and he
brought them down to her lap and held them. It was as if she was nothing but an
awe-struck bystander, unable to fully participate, riveted by his touch.

But then she did participate. She clasped at his jacket and pulled
him into her and breathed in his air and kissed him back.

The room disappeared. Jaz pulled herself closer and closer and
closer and tugged at his jacket to bring him toward her. He did the same, his
hands now all through her hair and hers through his. At one point she heard a
waitress come by and ask if they wanted anything else. She saw from the
periphery of her vision as her eyes briefly fluttered open that Miguel was waving
the mini-skirted blonde away.

I could fall in love with someone who kisses like this.

Eventually—her lungs still needing his air but her body now warm from
his touch—Miguel pulled away while her lips still lingered, her eyes closed, waiting
for him to continue. Then he pecked her once or twice more on the nose, and
whispered, "That. Was. Fucking.
Ahwsumm
."

Jaz bit her bottom lip and nodded, still tasting him.

And then he kissed her again, easing his hand across her waist and
then to her thigh.

But, ultimately, that's as far as he went, finally moving away from
her, leaving her wanting more.

She eased her head onto his chest as he sat with his legs stretched
now, watching the band. She closed her eyes, and let the music take her away.

A thought of December approaching
pierced
her heart without warning. Her hand shot over to Miguel's, clasping it, wanting
so desperately to tell him that he meant the world to her. But Miguel spoke
first.

"I hope you never leave," he said.

Jaz could not answer. But now she was awake. Wide awake—with fear.

It was September 6th, and time for Spring Break (the seasons being
all in reverse in South Africa), but not the kind of Spring Break that Jaz had
come to know in the States. This was a lot milder. Maybe it was only because
she had decided to spend it with Sandile, Elize and Miguel, and not with a mass
of drunken students partying it up at frat and house parties. Or, maybe, that's
just the way Spring Breaks were down here: relatively mild.

Whether she did it out of love for Miguel or for Sandile or even for
Elize; or whether it was simply because they were young and naïve and Jaz
believed that, in the end, all would turn out OK; or whether it had been just
like the slang and the South African words which had now become a part of her
very own language, subsumed into it as if the two had never been anything but
combined; whatever it was, Jaz had soon found herself roped into the lie that
was keeping Sandile and Elize's relationship alive.

Maybe, she thought, it had simply been because she, herself, was
also in love. Deeply, deeply in love. And the thought of not being with Miguel
had come to cause her even physical pain—the idea of it being so abhorrent to
her. That was likely the real reason that she had agreed to meet Elize's
parents a week earlier and gain their trust, so that Jaz could lie to them and
say she and Elize were headed out to Durban for Spring Break, alone.

Her parents agreed.

The four of them had cooked up a story of how Elize and Jaz had met
on some trip or some party or whatever (they had to keep reminding themselves
of the facts) and now Elize had been given the OK to go away with Jaz (her
parents would never have approved her going away with a boy). As if Fate itself
had willed it, Elize now also had her own car, so that had worked in their
favor. Elize told her parents that she and Jaz had booked a place in Durban so that
they could visit the beach. Miguel was (according to the tale) in Portugal.

They mentioned nothing about Mozambique. The story was already
elaborate enough. As far as Elize's parents were concerned, Elize and Jaz would
spend ten days in Durban, and then go back home.

In retrospect, they should've planned it better—much better. But in
the end, did any of that really matter?

As for Thandie, she'd been too smart to buy any of the bullshit,
especially after they'd started berthing
all
the IHRE students at the
International House while they undertook renovations at their usual dorms (a
point of minor upset after Thandie discovered that, even though she'd be staying
at the International House, she would still have to share a room with another
local because of space constraints), and especially since Jaz and Miguel had
started (officially) dating. That meant that Thandie was now around her
all
the time, constantly pressing her for details. So Jaz had simply cracked. After
some serious negotiation with Sandile, she got his agreement to tell her.
Is
that all?
Thandie had said.
Well if the neighborhood doesn't accept them
then fuck the neighborhood!
For all of Thandie's poetry, she also just had
a way of saying things succinctly and to the point.

What
had
bothered Jaz, however, was that, at the end of the
day, Elize's parents seemed like very kind people actually. Maybe it was
because Jaz was American that Elize's father had never once used the K-bomb in
front of her. Or, maybe, it was just that they had moved on.

People could change, couldn't they?

Or had there been nothing wrong with them in the first place, the
only supposed threats having been concocted by Miguel's (and maybe even
Sandile's) own preconceived ideas?

All of it was too much for Jaz to ponder. The burden of it all, of
reality seeping in to what otherwise should've been just a simple tale of two
people in love with each other, had begun to weigh down on her like a heavy
storm.
She told Miguel and Sandile that people could
change. That, even after years of prejudice, that their ideas could become
different.
Miguel and Sandile had simply raised their
eyebrows and said,
No fucking ways, china!

It angered her.

The internal strife of the country—and the emotional charge
attendant upon it—had begun to seep into Jaz's own aura. She had begun to feel
the hate and fear and tensions of things that, before, had been nothing more
than comments by strangers or "foreigners."

But, to her, the South Africans were no longer foreigners.

Everyone else was.

She had started to feel the unease within the class discussions
about things that, before, she would've dealt with intellectually. Now,
however, she sensed things more emotionally. At one point, she even had the
faintest desire to lay into Stefan simply because of the history of his people.

Why? Why had she wanted to do that? Was she becoming racist
herself—even if that racism was not aimed at a person's color, but at their
culture? Did she now hate all Germans and Afrikaners for what a minority
amongst their group had done in the past? Because of the very fact of where she
now lived, was she starting to sense and feel as the people in her immediate
environment felt? Even to the point of illogicalness?

It was as Thandie had once told her:
Girl,
people can be as intellectual as they want about racism, sexism, human rights.
The problem is that these are not intellectual subjects; they're emotional ones.

Someone had once told her that the way to really get to know a place
is to live in it. Everywhere you go will always look quaint and pleasant and
beautiful and picturesque when you vacation there. But when you live there,
it's a totally different cricket game.

And Jaz was feeling more and more South African. It wasn't because
her boyfriend (she still loved hearing the word) was South African or because
she now liked the taste of Nik Naks chips or even of biltong (which she'd
learned quickly should never be referred to as beef jerky—that was almost as
bad as telling a South African his accent sounded British). It wasn't because
she had learned that a
china
was a dude and an
oke
was just some guy (even though, when she said it, it still sounded
like she was talking about a tree). It was none of these things.

The land had infected her.

And whether it had been a disease or an inoculation, it was now a
part of her, and she a part of it.  Inextricable, both ways.

Both Pretoria and Wits University had their Spring Breaks at the
same time. Elize drove the car up to Miguel's house on the Friday afternoon
after school had ended. Sandile was already waiting for her there, as were Jaz
and Miguel. She parked the car in their garage and Miguel's dad was briefed on
what to say to anyone calling for him (that is, that Miguel was in Portugal). At
least one part of the story was true: Elize had told her parents they'd be
spending the night before leaving at Miguel's place because it was closer.

"It's a new South Africa, son. Some people just need to learn
to live with it
," said Miguel's dad. Miguel
frowned and shook his head. He knew that as well as any of the others did.

They left early the next morning, before the sunrise. Jaz was not
much of a morning person but at least she got to take a warm shower. She milked
it, as did Elize in the second bathroom, and, in total, the girls delayed their
departure time by at least thirty minutes.
It could have been worse
, thought Jaz.

Sandile seemed a little distant that morning, clutching his phone as
if the devil himself had called.

"What's up, boet?" asked Miguel who was at the wheel.

Sandile merely shook his head, and Miguel said nothing.

After a few moments: "It's not that fucking Tsepho again, is
it?" asked Miguel.

Tsepho. Where had she heard that name? Right, the guy with the gun that
day Sandile picked her up to go to Northgate Mall.

"No, just forget it, boet. Let's have a good time, OK?" Sandile
turned in his seat and held Elize's hand briefly. When Jaz looked at Elize, her
mind also seemed to be elsewhere.

On the way, Jaz flicked through two collections of CDs Miguel had
there. It soon became clear that one collection belonged to Sandile, the other
to Miguel.

"What about
Mafi
…
kizolo
?" said Jaz,
struggling to pronounce the name.

Sandile: "Yes!"

Miguel: "Hell no!"

Elize: "I'm starting to like kwaito. Put it on."

Miguel: "No fucking ways!"

"OK, enough!" Jaz cut in. "What about
L.O.V.E.
by
Revolu
—"

"Yes!" said Sandile, followed by a similar argument of
widely varying views and personal insults all aimed at each other's musical tastes.

"God, I don't know how you two ever stay friends," said
Jaz.

"There
is
something they both
like," said Elize.

Jaz looked at Miguel. She was positive that his cheeks had rouged. "Miguel?"
she asked.

He shrugged, acting innocent. Sandile was equally quiet.

Jaz: "And?"

"Go on, Miguel. Tell her!" urged Sandile.

Miguel cleared his throat. "Sandile has been ragging me about
something completely
stoopid
"—he rolled his
eyes in the rear-view at Sandile. "It's totally idiotic. It's—Melody Gardot.
We both Melody Gardot's genre."

Jaz tried to process the information. What was so funny about that?
She was even slightly disappointed, having hoped for some diaphragm-shaking
laughter at an incredibly climactic joke.

"I see," she said. "And where is that CD?"

Miguel paused, the sudden silence unnerving. "In my CD case,"
he said.

Jaz searched and looked but found nothing—even after going through
all of them twice.

"Where?" She was frustrated now.

"Miguel?" said Sandile.

Miguel cleared his throat. "It's the one labeled,
Best of
Jazz
."

More silence. Only when Jaz was putting the CD in did it cross her
mind what kinds of idiotic boy-jokes they'd probably made because of that CD. "Best
of
Jaz
?" she said.

Sandile snickered.

"I don't even want to know the kinds of pathetic jokes you guys
made about that!" she said, her cheeks now feeling warm.

"I told you it was stupid," said Miguel. "Besides,
it's all modern stuff. And not all of it is jazz: Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, Joss
Stone, Katie Melua—that kind of stuff."

"Not all of it is jazz, but all of them are attractive women,"
said Jaz, smiling at Miguel.

He blushed even more.

They stopped at Harrismith for some food and gas and already Jaz's
lungs had started to feel clearer, the mountainous area around her exuding an aura
of peace and calm that she had needed ever since her dinner at Elize's place where
her tension had been thick as bread and her fear as palpable as the sweat
currently running down her brow.

"It's hot!" she said, fanning her shirt.

"I love your accent," said Miguel, grabbing her hand and
walking over to the diner.

Sandile and Elize followed behind them and Jaz noted some of the
looks they got—or maybe she was just imagining it. All three of them—Elize,
Miguel and Sandile—seemed a little tense. They all just needed to fucking
relax. This was supposed to be a vacation, wasn't it?

After eating a burger (very small, but very delicious) at the "Wimpy"
diner (they also ragged Jaz constantly for always referring to it as a "diner"),
Jaz wolfed down a strawberry milkshake and they headed back on the road.

A few hours later, they arrived in Umhlanga Rocks, thereby totally
confusing Jaz who had, all this time, assumed they were going to a place called
"Durban." Apparently, whereas everyone called Durban and the
surrounding areas simply "Durban" (much like every suburb around
Johannesburg was indiscriminately called "Johannesburg"), they
weren't actually going into Durban proper, but to this other place, "Umhlanga
Rocks" (which Jaz gave up trying to pronounce—although it sounded
something like
oomshlahnga
).