anywhere.”
Chapter 5
It was only two days later, on the Friday, that I sat down to a very late lunch with my journalist friend, Tokoloho Mohapi, who was popularly known by the diminutive of Tolo. I had rushed straight from the hospital to this place, hoping to find her still herself. It was a dark, nameless bar and restaurant in Nugget Street, off route from where the trendy congregate to congratulate themselves with expensive drinks.
This lower part of Nugget has always had that indefinable smell that hangs somewhere between an African herbal emporium and a Middle Eastern bazaar. It comes from the innumerable stalls that stand in front of anonymous stores, where anonymous people sell anonymous bundles with their turbulent cries and squawks. Mumbling vendors wanting to lead you down stinking and slippery alleys with oily spills of stagnant water to show you something special, just perfect for you and only you. The accents and features of the hawkers may change, but the smells remain the same . . . pungent, everlasting, intoxicating and oddly dreamy smells. Of spices and incenses from distant lands and climes.
I bought two shrivelled apples from a malnourished-looking little girl standing near the door of the bar, and told her to eat them. She looked shocked at this novel idea and backed away from me, almost upsetting the box of fruit behind her. Well, I had tried.
Tolo preferred this bar because she could get steadily drunk here without anyone recognising her and making a fuss. The people here did not read newspapers, not in this bar. So print journalists like Tolo were safe. But I sometimes wondered about her private-school accent when she got drunk and spoke English exclusively. What did the dull-faced and dead-eyed patrons make of it? But the only thing they ever seemed to care about was the sport on the large-screen television at the back. They were now minutely re-examining every match of the last Soccer World Cup. And they knew all about it, from the global political climate, to who was in and who was out, their connection to the inner secret dealings of FIFA, the conspiracies with silent partners in the World Bank and the local transport industry, the diabolical manoeuvres of the international media . . . The speculations and permutations were endless.
They also never seemed to be in any hurry to get anywhere, like to jobs or homes. They just stuck around, both men and women. The owner-barman cast a forbearing eye on them all and only occasionally would he raise his voice in mild reproof. Otherwise he kept his own counsel.
I had just been brushed off by an editor when I first met Tolo. It was at one of those debauched parties that were held every day under the pretext of celebrating our new democracy. Back then she always wore jeans, chequered men’s shirts and battledress-style jackets and boots, like she was in uniform. But they were always different, so she must have bought a lot of them. Today she had softened into a cream pants suit. Silk? What do I know. She also wore elegant-looking black slip-ons that left her slim ankles bare. I was the one in scruffy jeans, a chequered shirt and boots, but without a jacket of any kind.
There were a few faces I always found in here, seated at the same small round tables, with seemingly the same number of bottles and the same number of butts in the ashtrays before them. They never said a word to us or to each other but had taken to nodding at me distantly whenever I happened to come in.
“They think we are a cheating couple. That you and I are having an affair,” Tolo had informed me gravely and tipsily one long summer afternoon a few years back.
“Well. I suppose we do look like a pair of no-goods to some people.”
“Don’t worry, baby. Let’sh play along,” she had slurred. “They shympathise, they are on our shide. They are also running from shomething or shomeone. Hushbands and wives are at the top of the . . . the shit lisht.” She had banged her glass on the table. “We could have a real hot affair, you know, you and me. There are cheap-cheap rooms upstairs, and nobody ashks questions.” She had pointed with a weaving hand in every direction but upstairs. She had been gone on the double whiskies on top of a bruising altercation with her editor that morning. She had never told me what it had all been about, but these run-ins with her editor had been growing in intensity, from the little I could gather. I had backed off from that particular mess and hadn’t pried, just as I had steered clear of her vague but apparently colossal marital problems. I shied away even more from her big-shot father, Professor David Mohapi, companion and confidant of the wealthy and well connected in the wounded land.
With my light beer, I had been more restrained. It had been obvious that I would have to drive her to her flat.
We never mentioned the incident but there was some awkwardness the next time we met. I never knew what she actually remembered of it. The thing is, I could have taken her up on it if she had not been so drunk and the bar had been less crowded with its leering patrons eager for amusement or novelty. The secret admission that I had always found her attractive only made me less sure of myself whenever I was in her company.
So here we were again, in this dark den of idle philosophers.
“You have been hiding,” she now said. “But it’s understandable. I wanted to attend the funeral. But the stupid editor wanted me to go interview some foreign woman who claims she has a cure for all of Africa’s problems.”
She sipped her bottled water. I didn’t ask about this unexpected abstinence. Someone once told me that you don’t make someone who’s trying to moderate their drinking feel self-conscious by remarking about it. Ironically, I was acutely aware of my own light beer and could hardly bring myself to touch it, much less drink it.
Like most people who have recently given up a long-time habit, she was irritable and prone to find fault with everyone and everything. I know this as I also have to watch myself.
“It was good of you to think of attending, but I still can’t talk about it.”
“Why talk about it at all?” she asked testily. “Too many people are talking endlessly about their troubles as it is, and you are not that type. It’s the TV that does it. The public self-exposure you see every time you turn it on. Now, as usual, our people want to join in. Sorry. That’s insensitive but I’m not handling my not drinking very well. And as a reporter I shouldn’t complain. It fills my columns.”
I did not point out that she had brought it up in the first place.
“You know, I agree with you on all points except your apology. It’s not necessary. You make me feel like I’m not a freak for not going around tearing my clothes in public.”
I got a smile from her but her hands were still moving restlessly, smoothing and then crumpling the stained red plastic tablecloth.
“Good. I knew you were not the type. Now, why are we here, since it’s not for sympathy?”
“Your paper carried big coverage on that unfinished mall outside Katlehong last year. I –”
“It was never finished because some people took the money and ran away with it,” she interrupted.
“Any idea who these people are?”
“There are plenty of suspects to choose from, according to the journalists who covered it. Too many, in fact; you could spend your entire career on this one story. So they dropped it.”
We were silent for a while as she rummaged in her extra-large shoulder bag looking for God knows what. A cigarette, maybe, but I had never seen her smoke; chewing gum; an emergency whisky flask?
“What did you say?” she asked with
