Yes, Fred said. Let me come and talk to them, she said. I will get them to open up. Get this whole thing cleared up by tomorrow afternoon.
That would be very helpful, Sunil said. You would do that?
For the twins? Sure, she said.
Hold up here, Salazar said. Now, wait just a fucking minute. They are my twins, my case. You get to help on one condition.
What is your condition?
That you come into the station voluntarily and that we run your prints and take a statement.
Fine. Can I talk to them, she asked Sunil.
Now? On the phone?
Any objections, Sunil asked Salazar.
Now you care what I think.
So?
Let her have her fucking phone call, Salazar said.
Sunil called the institute and asked the duty nurse to put the twins on.
What’s up, Doc, Fire said.
Hold for Fred, Sunil said, passing the phone.
Fred took it. Some privacy, she said.
Sunil looked at Salazar, who nodded. Fred left them on the porch and stepped back inside, closing the door behind her. She was on the phone for only a few minutes before she came back out and handed the phone to Sunil and thanked him.
Now you two need to leave, as I have a carnival to run, Fred said. She herded them to the door, taking their beer bottles.
So you’ll come by in the morning, Sunil asked.
Yes, I’ll meet you at the institute at ten.
She walked them back to their car. Two men sat in a golf cart beside it.
I see you have your own security, Sunil said.
It’s a ghost town. We need to keep it safe, she said.
Crowds were already beginning to mill about. The town suddenly looked alive, like a horror-film town, or a Stephen King novel, where everyone was dead in the daytime but came to life at night.
Where the fuck did all these people come from, Salazar asked.
All lost souls come to commune at the carnival, Fred said, laughing.
Fuck, Salazar said. He got into the car quickly and started the engine.
As Sunil turned to go, Fred touched his arm. Thank you for coming, she said. This is the closest thing the twins have to a home. I would like to bring them back. You understand, right? You lost your home too. Have you ever been back?
Sunil smiled. Good night, he said, and got in beside Salazar.
As they drove down the yellow brick road, Salazar said: You know she’s lying, right?
Of course she is, Sunil said. The question is, what is she lying about, and why?
The drive home was faster. Ten miles from the town, both of their cell phones began to beep.
Finally, some service, Salazar said.
Yes, Sunil said, looking at his phone.
Asia had called seven times. Sheila five. Brewster five.
Wow, he thought, busy night. He was curious about Asia’s calls, but Sheila and Brewster could wait. He tried Asia’s cell. There was no answer. As they hit the open road and gathered speed, Sunil thought back to Fred’s question: Have you ever been back?
He had been once: but not to J’burg, or Soweto, but to Cape Town. Thinking about it now, Sunil was reminded of one of those moments of uneasy grace that he’d found on a beach in Cape Town shortly after his return.
An overweight woman walked across the sand with one arm tucked close to her right side, body bent into a slightly angled sway. Sunil recognized the signs of a small shame, of a person used to an unkind gaze. The young woman sunbathing topless, spread to the glory of the sun with the abandon of the proud. Older women more modest with their bodies, but less with their envy, shot her disapproving glances.
An old white man slept in the sun: fully dressed and looking like an untidy pile of towels in the sand. A woman on her cell phone turned away from him, her muscled and uncovered back had a Ganesh tattoo spread like a rug across it. Kids of all colors and races clustered around an old black man selling ice cream from a blue-and-white cooler.
Returns are never what we expect them to be. The glory of old wins pales in the face of the reality of compromise. The Cape Town beach with whites, blacks, Indians, and coloreds fading into burnt sepia — the color of tolerance, a smudge over the sharp, angled pain that still struggled under the wash of it — was no different. There was no feeling of restitution in this. There should be more than giving back what was free and collective in the first place. He didn’t know what, but felt that there should be.
Near where he lay, a rock still held the rusting scar of a sign that used to declare THE DIVISION COUNCIL OF THE CAPE — WHITE AREA: BLANKE GEBIED. He’d stubbed his toe on it coming down to the sand. A Boer somewhere is smiling, he thought. Everyone on the beach seemed to be having a good time and he couldn’t understand at first why he was so angry. Then he realized what it was; the air was heavy with it — amnesia.
Restorative, isn’t it, a woman next to him said.
What is, he asked, always precise.
The water, she said, the water and the breeze.
They had water and a breeze on Robben Island, he said. I’m not sure how restorative that was.
She took off her sunglasses and looked at him, intrigued by his non sequitur. He returned her look, taking in details: she was of indeterminate race, probably colored, he thought, and young, maybe thirty, and attractive in an unusual way.
I like the way the breeze makes everything seem good, she said, choosing her words carefully, responding not to his statement but to something unsaid, something she sensed.
Like apartheid, he said, unable to help himself. I imagine all the whites lying here during apartheid, the breeze and the water making it possible for everything to seem good, he added.
Yes, she said. I suppose you are right. There was a smile behind her words.
You seemed amused by it, he said, offended.
Not by it, she said, stressing the syllables. I am amused by your tone.
Why?
You just came back, she said.
Yes, he said, wondering how she could tell. His accent?
Gone for a long time?
Ten years, he said.
She nodded. It is a long time, she said.
Yes, he said. Too long.
She bit down on her sunglasses and sighed. It is not just time, is it? That bothers you, I mean.
No, he said.
Lost people to the darkness?
He was simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by her description of that time. It was darkness — of the spirit, the heart — but why that word? Why was it always used in the negative? It had been whiteness, a lightness that made it hard for the perpetrators to see the limits of their souls, not blackness, that destroyed them all. He wanted to say that but was held back by his knowledge that it was only partially true. Mostly, but not completely, and as his mother used to say, quoting a Zulu proverb, You cannot eat meat you mostly caught, only meat you actually caught.
Yes, he said, instead. My mothers.
She nodded, eyes sad for him. If she noticed the plural and thought it odd, she didn’t say anything. Perhaps she knew that it took more than one mother to raise a child through those times.
Nobody could stop the sickness, she said. Not even Madiba. It had to run its course. There was no blame in the loss of those times.
It seemed to him that there was plenty of blame and he had a share in that. There is always blame, he said. There has to be. What is life without it?
She smiled and said: Good old South African guilt, shared by all races.
I shouldn’t have to feel guilty, he said. I didn’t do this.
If she wondered what he meant by “this,” she said nothing. Instead she said: I know, but we all do. It doesn’t help anything though.
He nodded and looked away, suddenly tearful.