All the banks, businesses, and shops of any merit were at the heart of the circle. At one remove, the colored towns, a perfect ring of defense around the white heart. The coloreds were not white but overwhelmingly wanted to be, and even if it was not exactly white they wanted to be, they did want their privilege; and at least they were one up on the blacks. As in any free market, the coloreds were the middle classes, as it were — those who would give their lives to maintain the status quo, a life they knew they could never improve but which had meaning only because there were those who suffered worse; that in fact, a larger population suffered worse. Sunil knew of course that not all coloreds were middle class, but they could at least all dream and aspire to it. In the outer ring of hell, yet closer to the flames, in an orbit so cut off from the benevolence of the heart of apartheid, mired in a poverty they could never gain enough purchase to dream an escape from, were the blacks. And they had to bus into the heart every day to work for the whites, following only one or two access points, where they were policed and harassed to make sure they had the right passes and work papers. They spent 60 percent of their daily income on transportation alone, and since there were no legal supermarkets or shops in the third ring, they had to spend 20 to 30 of the remaining 40 percent on food in the white heart, or sometimes, and only sometimes, in the colored towns, where the prices were even higher but where there were more shops willing to take their money. Then they had to try to make it home from the heart, through the second ring that loved nothing more than to harass and degrade them, so that if they were lucky, they made it home with one-tenth of their income. Those who were more daring walked ten miles or more one way from Soweto to the outer rings of the second level and then rode buses in — a long column of ants carrying their misery on their heads wrapped with the workloads, trailing the side of the road, inhaling the dirt of the passing cars and the inclemency of the weather; all this to keep a tenth of the money they worked so hard for. And as they tried to make ends meet, the white heart grew wealthier and wealthier because almost none of the money ever left it; what spilled over, the second ring mopped up very quickly, long before it could even trickle out to the third.
While there were some rich and middle-class blacks in Soweto, they accounted for fewer than 3 percent of the township’s entire population, a population larger than the neighboring country of Zimbabwe.
The crazy thing was, the blacks made up 90 percent of South Africa’s population, which, as it turns out, the whites thought worked for them, because such a large population, kept so far removed from power and divided by hunger and fear, could never fully rise up in opposition. Turns out the whites were wrong. Sunil often thought about America and how the lie of the equality of material conditions would lead to big and violent rifts in the country. Time was the only variable in every equation of power and oppression — how long before the pot boiled over.
This variable of time is something those with power know well and learn to exploit with great measure. Sunil found from experience that the easiest way to do this was to corrupt slaves into tyrants, regardless of their race or imagined position. It worked well in South Africa, on the whites as well as on the blacks, because even though the whites thought they were free, they weren’t. In America, too, the improvement of material circumstances, and the gentle padding of minimal power, could seduce even the most cynical citizen. For the blacks the reward was even less: more work than their contemporaries. But work that affords only the essentials, no matter how much better than your neighbors it makes you, can never lead to freedom.
Why are you so fucking quiet, Salazar asked. You’re freaking me out.
They were at this point rolling down Main Street, speed cut to a crawl, looking out for signs of life. Even though most of the buildings were boarded up, some light came from the bar, the general store, and the pink building with the neon ANGEL’S LADIES sign. And then there was that music, the guitar and voice that seemed to be everywhere at once.
At least they’ve got the right businesses open, Sunil said. Food, liquor, and sex.
So?
So they can’t be all that weird, Sunil said.
Amen to that, Salazar said, relaxing for the first time since they’d turned off the freeway.
They parked just a few doors away from the bar, by an abandoned diner. Sunil peered through the window. Eerily there were still place settings and coffee in the pot on the counter. It looked open, except for the film of dust over everything and the big rat on the counter next to the coffeepot cleaning its paws.
Next door was the pink-painted bordello with the hissing neon sign, and Sunil wondered who Angel was, and why there was a bright-blue neon sign in a ghost town, five miles off a freeway. It wasn’t like anyone new would wander by and see it, and everyone who knew about it didn’t need the sign.
The bar was a low-slung building probably unchanged from when it was first built around the beginning of the last century. ROSE WALTER’S, a sign above it said. Sunil pulled the white door open and walked in, Salazar behind him. The place was empty, aside from the barman, who was older, with long unwashed hair and a tie-dyed rainbow shirt.
Welcome, name is Bob, he said. What can I fetch you gentlemen?
Sunil and Salazar settled at the bar.
Bob, you’re shitting me, Salazar said.
You wouldn’t happen to have any single-malt whiskey, would you, Sunil asked.
Sure do, Bob said, reaching under the counter and pulling out a bottle. He placed it before Sunil, fetched a rag, and wiped it clean of dust.
Sunil inspected it; good color, good odor. Fine sample, he said.
Bob laughed happily and poured generous amounts into three shot glasses. He toasted them and downed the whiskey, eyes watering. Sunil and Salazar drank it down too.
Really good, Sunil said, feeling the familiar warmth spread through him.
First one’s on the house, gentlemen, Bob said.
Where the fuck is everyone, Salazar asked.
They’ll be here. Some fly in from Vegas every night, land in the old airstrip where the crash is. Others come by bus and this place usually has about three thousand people by midnight, when the carnival starts. It’s been good for us, that carnival.
What’s the carnival called, Sunil asked.
Carnival of Lost Souls, Bob said.
Where can we find it, Salazar asked.
Just turn right by the whorehouse and follow the yellow brick road.
You’re shitting me, Salazar said.
Ain’t shitting you.
Fuck, Salazar said, getting up.
Sunil settled the tab.
The yellow brick road had no bricks, and it wasn’t particularly yellow, either. It was just a cracked and pitted tar road with orange paint splattered carelessly over it in a thin film, as if someone had driven up and down holding a paint can from an open window, splashing the road. Perhaps that was what made it extraordinary, because there was no denying that it was. That, and also, perhaps, the sudden blaze of a patch of California poppies to the side, and the weeds that flung back from the road into the houses, their heads bent from a gentle breeze. At the end of the road was a bristlecone pine laden with decaying shoes, hundreds of them strung up like dark lanterns.
Under the tree stood a woman.
She was at least six-three, with very short hair, almost a buzz cut, and a body that was cut and rippling with muscle. She was holding a clipboard in one hand, and a walkie-talkie in the other.
Salazar pulled up under the tree and got out. Sunil followed.
You can’t park here, Fred said, her voice deep and husky. Please follow the signs to the visitors’ lot.