Page 32 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

“So how does it feel to be at the bottom of the world?”
The ocean lapped over my toes and swirled in creamy arcs around my ankles, cool and glittering black and white in the moonlight. A wave retreated, leaving a shining plane of white sand, its perfect surface sud- denly pierced by dozens of pockmarks as some spe- cies of burrowing mollusks dug themselves in.
I laughed at the idea—the bottom of the world. Maps made by gold-eager European merchants, the twisted cartography of colonialism. The nearest of the busy little shelled creatures was scooting toward the sea, digging a furrow behind it. I scooped it into my hand, letting the sand melt through my fingers. It ducked momentarily into its shell, then stuck out a firm, tongue-like appendage and began an athletic trek across my palm.
“This thing has absolutely no fear—what is it?”
Ian stepped forward and peered at the creature in my hand.
“Yes, they’re quite cheeky, aren’t they? Cockles, they call them here.”
Blue bells, cockle shells, eevy, ivy, overs. The mystery of the jump-rope chant finally solved. So this is a cockle. What other discoveries await me in South Africa? I wondered. And only just off the plane, too. Ian plunged his hands into the pockets of his Senegalese-style trousers, what my mother would have called harlequin pants. His New York Knicks T-shirt flapped in the sea breeze—it hadn’t been that baggy six months ago. He was losing weight here. He looked better in almost ev- ery way, in fact. Tanned, relaxed, his hair blonder with the sun and sea, more tightly curled.
The moon hung like a silver coin over Fish Hoek bay, highlighting the contours of the cliffs and hills that hugged the shoreline. I inhaled deeply, intoxicated by the foreign vegetal fragrances, the lush, salt kelpiness of the sea, the softest sand I had ever felt folding up over my bare feet.
“I thought we might check out this little dinner place—” Ian pointed with his thumb over his shoul- der. “It’s owned by a local cook. She’s married to one of the fishermen who sail out every few days from the beach here. They’ve got great prawns.”
~
As we walked in, Souka music was playing from some hidden speakers—we were among only three tables seated. The owner was a large and smiling black woman who recommended the prawns with peri- peri sauce and grilled yellowtail. A delectable scent of garlicky, fatty smoke drifted in from the brai pit out back as we sipped cold bottles of ale. So many sensations to process made me only dimly aware of the ache in my muscles from the 17-hour plane ride. Ian raised his glass to me.
“To the new millennium,” he said. He’d kept his promise to stay in New York to see the year 2000.
By the end of February that year, I was helping him to sort out his belongings, hustling him out of town on the heels of an expired student visa and an empty bank account.
“Being home agrees with you,” I said. “You think?”
“You look great.”
“I’m still a bit of a mess. I’ve got at least fifteen more pounds to lose. But I’m surfing every day—that’s been the best part. That and the food. The food’s fantastic. And so damn cheap.”
“Well, compared to New York, everything’s cheap.”
“No, I really mean it—your whole meal’s going to come out to less than 15 bucks. And that’s with drinks. It’s unreal.”
We peered at each other across the table, one of those moments where I told my mind to stop questioning, stop looking for answers. Just be here. Enjoy this mo- ment. You are in South Africa—you may never be here again. What does it matter what we are to each other? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Friends with benefits? On and off lovers? Do we have to put a label on it? He invited me here. How else would I ever have done this?
I recalled the email he’d sent me over the summer (Cape Town’s winter), soon after he’d moved back home. He wrote of strange experiences he was hav- ing in his new place, a somewhat run-down hillside bungalow a five-minute walk to the beach. Windows lined the living room to let in the sun and a spec- tacular view of the twin bays of Fish Hoek, and Kalk Bay just behind it. Little hand-cranks opened and closed the windows, not all of them very tightly, ow- ing to years of salt spray and rain warping the wood
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Cape Wind
reBeCCa MinniCh