and a biscuit.
His accent was South African, but it had a touch of British in it. She was fascinated by a small stain on the sleeve of his gray suit. It so much didn’t belong there. He asked her nothing about her involvement with Isaac. She was grateful. She asked him about his journey, whether he lived in Johannesburg, what his work involved. Yes, Jo’burg was his home. He worked for the government, and also closely with the diamond industry, principally De Beers.
His face bore the ravages of his powerbroking role between the diamond industry and the South African government, but still, she liked him, the boy in him close enough to the surface to be seen. She imagined him getting out of bed in the morning, mussed from sleep, grumpy, before he donned his public self. When he took his leave, their eyes met, and hers unaccountably welled up. He held her hand a little longer than necessary. Since Ian had died, she’d felt nothing for any man and hardly recognized the brief flicker Devalk inspired. After he’d gone, she opened the envelope he’d left. Foolscap-sized sheets of paper, government seals, densely written Afrikaans. The only thing she recognized was the name, Isaac Muthethe. All afternoon, she kept opening the drawer and sliding it closed again, making sure the envelope was there. She skipped lunch. She hardly dared go to the bathroom.
When she picked up Moses and Lulu after school, she thought of telling them where she’d be going Tuesday, but she couldn’t bear to disappoint them. She turned to look at them sitting side by side on the seat of the truck. Lulu had ripped her uniform and scraped her knee. A white gauze pad, already dusty, covered the scrape. Moses said in broken English that someone had pushed her and he’d pushed that someone. Alice turned to Lulu. “I’m sorry someone was mean to you.”
She smiled crookedly. “Mma?” She didn’t understand.
Tuesday morning, Alice drove the children to school and started south toward the Ramatlabama border gate. There was almost no traffic, and no dust. Every rock on Kgale Hill stood out. She saw a boy out early with two goats, and two schoolgirls with bows in their hair. Her hands on the wheel shook with the deep corrugations in the road. By sunset, it would be all over, one way or the other, when the border gate closed for the night.
She passed through Lobatse, and on toward the border. From a distance, she could smell the Botswana Meat Commission’s abattoir, stinking of blood and fire. Some of those poor beasts trekked hundreds of kilometers to get here, with no idea where they were going.
She made her way south of Lobatse, and far away, she saw the border. At the Botswana gate, she told the guard that she would not be passing through to South Africa, that she was waiting for a South African who’d been granted political asylum. She pulled the documents out of the envelope, together with a copy of a document from Quett Masire’s office. The guard looked over the pages and passed them back to her. “Go siame, mma.” Okay.
Driving toward the South African side, she spotted two white guards standing sentinel in the shade of an ugly building, one just inside, one outside. They wore khaki uniforms—shorts and kneesocks, crisp, short-sleeved shirts. Both had guns in shoulder holsters. A third man, a black African, worked at a distance from them, washing an official car with a rag and a bucket. He was in the open, the sun so hot it was shouting now, moving his rag slowly over the bumper, and back again, then over the curve of the fender.
Alice parked the truck and walked toward the two guards. The one closest to her watched her, shifting uneasily. He reminded her of an animal in the wild. Approach them in a truck, and they’re calm enough, but out of your vehicle, you’re to be feared. She carried her purse over one shoulder, the large envelope between her elbow and side. Instinctively, she put her palms out so they’d see she was unarmed and harmless.
She greeted them in English. “Good morning to you,” and got an unenthusiastic greeting back. “Do you know English?” she asked. One nodded. “I won’t be crossing the border. I’m waiting for someone who has received political asylum.” She gave them Isaac’s name. “I have some documents.” She held out the envelope to them. The tall guard looked at the