Page 35 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

Ian looked out over the harbor, then down at his feet. “Better just get one. I’ve been already.”
“You sure? I’ll pay.”
“You can go on a day I’ll be in the editing studio. We’re still in post-production on that video I told you about. It’ll be better than sitting around at home, no?”
We had lunch in a little tavern, its windows open to the warm spring breeze. Ancient surfboards and torn fishing nets decked the walls, the specials written
on a black slate in multicolored chalk. Ian walked over to talk to a weather-stained old gent who was stooped over his beer. The man’s face exploded in a joyful laugh, exposing a missing canine tooth as he stood and clapped Ian on the shoulder.
“Where you been, bruh?”
They caught up while our beers were poured, Ian pointing me out to the man, who nodded graciously in my direction. I couldn’t catch much of what they were saying, as their talk morphed and slid between English and Afrikaans.
“God, that was a blast from the past,” Ian muttered as he led us to a table, a pint in each hand. “If you can believe it, that guy’s only five years older than me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s what heroin, alcohol, and thirty years in the African sun will do to you.”
Ian recounted how he’d met the guy at an antigov- ernment rally during the Apartheid years. He’d been something of a leader in the South African Commu- nist Party. They’d been arrested together for organiz- ing draft resisters.
“He was in prison longer than I was—about three years. I got out in six months, but he was better known. They were pretty rough on him.”
Ian talked about being in prison the way most people talk about their first job. Like it was completely normal and no big deal. It was something I never got used to about him. Back in New York, I asked him once how he managed to be so casual about such a traumatic experience. He just shrugged and remind- ed me that things were different during Apartheid. And it had been, after all, a white prison. He’d gotten off easy. Though I knew that wasn’t true—at least not for his parents. They weren’t even told of his where- abouts for four months, because that had been the policy at the time. Administrative detention.
“His wife left him in ’89 or so,” Ian murmured under the bar music. “I think he kind of lost it after that. That was right around the time I left for New York. Man, I barely recognized him.” He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, peering out the win- dow over my shoulder at the street outside.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yah, I just...forgot I guess, how small this town is.”
~
The ferry to Robben Island slowed its wake to pass a rocky, treeless outcropping that served as a seal breed- ing colony. The cacophony of barking and seagull squeals was matched by the fish reek that hit like a physical blow as we approached. European tourists whipped out cameras as the massive bulls of the colo- ny reared up and gave the passing ferry dirty looks.
A bus took us from the ferry dock to the prison where Nelson Mandela had been held from 1962 to 1990. The tour guide spoke to us in a thick Xhosa accent from the front of the bus. Dust wafted in from the open win- dows as we bounced over the gravel access road.
“What countries are you from?” He asked.
People began calling out: Germany, France, Denmark, England, Italy. I was the only one who said United States.
“And how many of you protested Apartheid in your own countries in the 1980s?”
Most of us raised our hands.
“Thank you. You do not realize what your solidarity meant to us at the time. You gave us courage and inspiration to continue the struggle. To endure the suffering.”
I felt myself coming oddly unglued. Tears sprung to my eyes, and I wiped them away, along with the film of white dust that already coated my cheeks. I thought about our cardboard “shantytowns” that we’d built to cover the campus mall; the day we took over the uni- versity president’s office to demand divestment from South African businesses. Did we ever consider that they were watching? What it had looked like from here? I imagined being under this searing sun all day, breaking rocks under the glare of armed guards.
It was late when I got home to the little bungalow
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