Jaz & Miguel (16 page)

The lie with Elize's parents seemed to have gone well—as well as
could be expected. Her parents said they'd talk to her when she got back but,
for the most part, told her to have a good time and not to forget that sex
before marriage was a sin.

Jaz gave a little internal chuckle at that, but Elize seemed to take
the thing pretty seriously so she never mentioned it.
Each to his own
,
she thought.

It was about a ten hour drive to Xai-Xai, the place they would be
staying at in Mozambique. They'd be there for two nights and three days—the
last three days before they'd go back to college. Back to reality.

The day before they left Durban ("Umhlanga"), Miguel
picked up a trailer from a garage that his father rented, and filled it up with
canned goods, vegetables, sunflower oil, rice, and potatoes. He would've filled
it up alone but, just as he had opened the door to leave for the supermarket in
the morning, Jaz had awoken and asked him where he was going. So he reluctantly
told her, saying, as well, that he didn't want to come across as some good
Samaritan.

It turns out that every time he went up to Mozambique, he packed one
of his dad's two trailers with food for a church that then handed it out to
some of the people there. They kept a trailer in Durban and one in
Johannesburg, just in case Miguel had to travel up to Mozambique from either
location.

"You'll understand why when we get there. It's not a religious
thing. It's a human thing
," he told her.

And understand, she did. Maputo was a war zone—or looked like one.
It was hard to find a building that was standing up straight or that didn't
have one of its walls blown off. Further into the country and out of the main
city (where no one seemed to respect traffic lights), mobs of children and
adults alike, each in disheveled and dirty clothes, surrounded their car trying
to sell them bangles, chains, sculptures,
anything
. Miguel stopped the
car, a smile on his face while Jaz slowly got over the terror of thinking they
were about to be mugged by a mob. They all got out. Jaz bought one bangle, and
then another, and then another ....

It seemed that the more she bought, the more they wanted to sell her.
It quickly dawned on her that she would not be able to buy enough goods to help
them all feed their families. There were women, children, and men on the
street.

For a moment, she'd expected to hear Sandile talk to them, but then
saw that it was Miguel who was doing the talking—in
Portuguese.
He looked around and said some things she didn't understand. A few
seconds later, as if running toward water in a desert, a man appeared with two white
plastic bags filled with something reddish or pink inside. Miguel pulled out
some money and gave it to the man and took the bags. The man thanked him and hurried
away.

"Prawns," he said to Jaz, holding the bags up and smiling.
"Best in the world."

"And the cheapest," said Sandile.

Miguel spoke more to the kids and pointed over in a direction ahead,
and then at his trailer. Then he pointed ahead again.

They started running.

The four of them got back in the car and Miguel started it.

Jaz was not sure what she was feeling, but when Miguel spoke, he
encapsulated it:
"Heartbreaking,
isn't it?" he said, and put the car in gear.

And it was. It was fucking heartbreaking. It was so fucking
heartbreaking that Jaz turned her head out the window in an effort not to cry.

You'll understand why when we get there. It's not a religious thing.
It's a human thing.

They drove a few minutes and arrived at what seemed like a church.
Basically, it was just an old house with a cross made of wood by the gate.
Miguel was greeted by a dusky man with white stubble whose skin was darker than
Miguel's but lighter than Sandile's, his features clearly Caucasian, but his
peppered hair notably African. They hugged and exchanged some words. Miguel
introduced them all but the man didn't speak English. The only words he said
were, "Thank you. Thank you." Jaz didn't know what he was thanking
her
for—it had not been she who had brought the food. But she promised herself
silently that if she ever came back here again it
would
be—and if not
food, then something else.

As they drove back out, an empty trailer now behind them, the crowd
that had followed them was outside the gate. Looking at the numbers of people,
Jaz tried to calculate the amount of days the canned food would last.

She didn't even get to one.

But it was impossible for them to have brought more. Miguel had even
bribed someone at the border just to let them bring in what they had. Jaz had
been shocked at first, but now she was fucking proud. They couldn't have gotten
those things to those kids a minute sooner.

"See what I mean?" he said.

She was distant, and his words brought her back. It took her a
moment to understand that he had said something to her. "Mean—mean about
what?"

"You could be Jewish, Catholic, Muslim or even an atheist, but
if you ever come into this country and don't do even a little to help these
people, then the one thing you're not, is human."

Hell yeah
.

They stayed at a plain house by the beach—nothing fancy, and quite different
to what Jaz had expected. The house itself looked like it had been built sometime
in the forties. When they got inside, it smelled of dust and almost felt like
an army barracks. There were two bedrooms, but it was clear that none of them
would get any privacy over the next two nights because the walls were so thin.
Outside, there was a huge gazebo-type thing with a thatched-roof (it seemed
everything had thatched roofs in Africa!), low concrete walls and a built-in
braai (of course) in the center. Surrounding it were coconut palms, the ground
mostly covered in sand.

Jaz saw a few coconuts that had fallen on the floor. She scavenged
for the better looking ones and picked up two.
Sandile and Miguel made a bet on who could open up their respective ones
the fastest but, in all fairness, Miguel had a pocket knife with him so ...
technically ... he cheated. (And Jaz, as the referee, called it).

Miguel proceeded to marinate the prawns inside (which Jaz insisted were
really shrimps but no one believed her) with butter and garlic—something he'd
learned from his mom, he said. Sandile prepared the fire. When Miguel got back outside,
he told Sandile that he made a fire like a girl, and Sandile told Miguel that
only a girl knew how to marinate prawns.

They cracked open a few beers and inhaled the fresh scent of butter
and garlic as it burned on the grill.

After dinner, Miguel took a bottle of rosé and two glasses and walked
with Jaz on the promenade just outside the house. He'd changed into shorts and
sandals and she'd gone casual as well. "Nice that we can see each other
like this, isn't it?" she said.

"Like what?"

"Without make-up; without fancy clothes."

"Oh, you look like a dog, I meant to tell— Ouch! Damn it!"
Jaz had planted him one—solid on the shoulder. "You understand that I have
lost mobility in that arm from all the times you've hit me, don't you?"

Jaz stuck her tongue out at him.

Miguel noted how beautiful she looked—make-up on or off, making a
face or not, hands in the pockets of her surfer shorts or sleek body sheathed
in a blue velvet dress. It didn't matter. She always looked perfect.

Right now, her hair was messy—pretty much as it had been every day
since the start of their trip, what with the wind and everything—and she wore a
baggy shirt, her pert breasts only really noticeable when she stretched and
arched her back (yes, he'd noticed). If it had been up to him, he would've
taken her right here and now, out on the beach, naked with her on the sand. And
then they might have even slept under the moonlight, not a care in the world, as
if nothing else mattered.

Except that something did matter.

Jaz was leaving.

"I still can't believe you told me you love me," she said
wistfully.

Was she fucking kidding him?
Miguel loved
her more than he'd ever loved anyone. But he didn't tell her that. Instead, he
looked out into the ocean as its waves crashed into the sands. He turned off
the promenade and onto the beach itself.

They sat down on the sand and he poured them both a glass of rosé.

"Jaz?"

"Hmmm, this sounds serious," she said with a lilt, as if
asking a question.

"What are you going to do in December?"

A moment of silence.

"I ... don't know."

It wasn't what Miguel had wanted to hear.

"I mean," she continued, "I want to be with you. I
just don't know how that will work. My life is in Seattle—I mean ... and I have
to major in something—"

"Right."

"Miguel, don't ask me now. I—I also love you. I love you more
than anyone has ever loved another person. But what would I do down here? My
whole family is in the States. I mean, would you ever think of living—"

"Never."

She stopped.

"Just like that? Not even … for me?"

"You never fully leave Africa once you've lived in it. I'd
spend the rest of my life wanting to come back here. I can't do that to you."

And so the conversation stopped. A stalemate. Jaz sipped her wine, clearly
enjoying this sweeter tasting one far more than that Pinotage they'd had in
Durban; then she leaned back and put her head on his shoulder.

Miguel said nothing else, but only looked out into the sea.

She kissed him in on the neck, but his blood was cold now. He
twitched away. "Not tonight, Jaz." He saw her eyes move away in
embarrassment.

You can't do that to a girl—reject her advances—and expect her to
not lose pride in herself. And a woman's pride in herself is what she values
most—as if the moment of losing it is the first moment of her growing old.

And Miguel knew that, by his rejection, he'd just made Jaz grow a
little older.

But he also knew that sleeping with her, or keeping up this façade of
togetherness when it was bound to be ripped apart from them in only a few
months like an impala's neck at the mercy of a cheetah's jaw, would eventually
hurt her more.

And it would all but kill
him
.

So he chose the lesser of two evils for now.

The next morning, Elize walked out of the house wearing one of
Sandile's long shirts and nothing else, sipping a cup of coffee. Jaz sat on one
of the concrete benches in the gazebo, looking out into the ocean, a moist wind
blowing strands of her hair gently across her face.

Elize wore a smile—a satisfied smile—whereas Jaz had never felt so
... frustrated.

"Good night?" asked Jaz, feeling slightly jealous.

Elize nodded. "Thanks for letting us be alone last night,"
she said.

Right
.

They sat in silence and the boys finally came out. Miguel sat on the
back of the bench on which Jaz was sitting, and rubbed her back. They all said
very little.

It was then that Jaz managed to give a name to what she'd been
feeling since the night before: it was emptiness (if that was even an emotion).
Because conceiving of a life in which Miguel
did not play a part, made her feel like the shells of the coconuts they'd eaten
after the prawns the night before: just … empty.

"So, what's on for today?" asked Sandile, pecking Elize
hello on her cheek and then looking at Miguel and Jaz. As he said it, Elize's
phone rang from inside and she went to pick it up.

"Whatever you want, boet. We could even just sit here and look
out into the ocean and do jack-shit."

Elize came out of the house right away, the phone in her hand and
her eyes wide with shock. She was speaking in Afrikaans and rushing toward the gazebo.
Jaz leaned forward, and felt Miguel's hand press harder against her back.

"What is it?" she said to Miguel, and as she looked up at
him, she noticed the lack of color in his face.

When she looked at Sandile, he had paused, mug in hand, mouth wide
open, staring at Elize.

What the
fuck
is going on?

Elize was now frantic, saying something, shaking her left hand and
looking at the three of them intermittently.

And then Jaz saw it: the water in her eyes, as if they were swimming
in a lake of terror. Her lips trembled, and she shook as she stretched the
phone out toward Miguel.

"
Hy wil met jou praat
?" she said to Miguel, presumably meaning that someone wanted
to talk to him.

Miguel got up and took the phone. Elize hardly moved. Miguel paced
the gazebo as he spoke quietly. Jaz got up and hugged Elize whose body, she
discovered, was trembling.