From Cape Town with Love (7 page)

Like I said, in the bosom of beauty, it's hard to fathom ugly.

A brown dog lay bloated and forgotten at the road's dusty edge, forage for flies. A skinny boy, too young to roam alone, strolled in scuffed and laceless shoes past the corpse without turning his head or holding his nose. A clutch of teenage boys who looked fourteen and fifteen drank beer in a circle, pouring out the first drops as a libation to ancestors or absent friends. At a makeshift barbecue grill—a barrel sliced in half, propped on its side—a skinned, spotted lamb carcass lay in the sun. When we passed more closely, I saw that the spots on the lamb were a mantle of blue flies seeking shelter and nutrition for children yet unborn.

The man in Maitlin's entourage made an
ewww
sound. “Garçon, may I see the vegetarian menu?”

“Like I could eat for the rest of the day now,” Rachel Wentz said.

“Hey, hey, are we at the zoo?” Toto muttered, just loudly enough to be heard. He definitely wasn't used to driving tourists. I almost smiled.

The van went quiet again.

There are sections of Langa with paved streets, brick homes, and street signs—locals, ironically, call it “Beverly Hills.” Other sections, with blandly painted apartment buildings, look just like American projects. And there were signs of recent improvement; I noticed more colorful murals and newer construction than I'd seen during my last visit. But even in the so-called New South Africa, too many of the township's residents live in overcrowded hostels, or ramshackle lean-tos built of strips of plywood and corrugated tin. On some streets, Langa looks like the new South Africa; on others, the poverty seems as ancient as the rocks in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge.

At the corner, the two-story white brick orphanage stood out on its drab street—a professionally painted sign hanging on a well-kept fence, and walls hosting a parade of convincing Disney characters, although Snow White and her seven dwarves had deep suntans.
April would get a kick out of that,
I thought, and then I banished her from my mind.

No children were in sight in the large yard behind the fence, but there was plenty of playground equipment. The orphanage looked better off than any of the shabbier buildings in sight, with at least a quarter of an acre on its grounds. It could have been a school in Compton, except for the razor wire.

But when we rounded the corner, with a better view of the orphanage entrance, Children First didn't look the way it had in the photos.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Rachel Wentz said behind me. My thoughts exactly.

Word had gotten out. A crowd of more than fifty people had gathered, and there was only one white-and-powder-blue police car parked on the street near the gate. As soon as the onlookers spotted the van, the crowd congealed and surged toward us.

Two police officers in dark blue uniforms and caps—one male, one female, both black—were trying to keep the crowd contained. A quick scan didn't turn up anyone who looked dangerous, but I didn't like the growing numbers. Doors were opening at homes and businesses up and down the street as more people came running. Soon, our crowd could number in the hundreds.

Toto honked angrily. “Move!” he yelled from his open window, precariously close to clipping two teenage girls as they ran up to the van.

Maitlin didn't look happy as she craned to peer through her window,
where eager palms slapped the glass with cries of “It's her! It's her!” It sounded like a hailstorm.

Locals, not media. The only video camera was a small Sony in the hands of a grinning teenage boy who probably had
The Vintner
etched on his eyeballs. I searched the crowd for more cops, but there were only two.

“Ms. Maitlin, we don't have the police we were promised,” I said. “If we come tomorrow, I can coordinate—”

“No,” Maitlin snapped, sounding angry. “Today. I'm not turning back.”

“The bodyguard's talking sense, Sophie,” Rachel Wentz said, playing mother.

But Maitlin had made up her mind. “Pull up,” she told the driver. “We're going in.”

I didn't have a choice, at that point. She would have gone in without me.

The female police officer waded through the crowd to the driver's window, so I leaned over to talk to her. She was probably a rookie; she looked about twenty-three. “I was promised more manpower!” I said, raising my voice over the thumping hands. Would six be enough?

“There is a funeral today, much bigger than expected,” she said, apologetic. “We're sorry, but there have been some problems. The others are delayed.”

“How long?” I said. I'd just confirmed an hour before.

“Indefinitely, I would say,” she reported matter-of-factly.

“Officer, do you see this crowd?”

Her apology veered quickly to irritation. “What do you want me to do—shoot them with rubber bullets? It isn't every day a movie star comes to Langa.”

Yeah, no kidding.

“Can you and your partner help us make a ring around Ms. Maitlin?” I said.

She nodded, satisfied with my plan. She motioned for her partner, who was husky but looked even younger than she did. Slim backup, but better than none.

I climbed into the backseat so that I could be the first one out of the
van's sliding door. Four pairs of attentive eyes stared at me as if their lives were in my hands. Tim, in particular, looked terrified.

I didn't want anyone to get hurt, of course, but I was only one man with one client—Sofia Maitlin. I hate to put it this way, but her entourage, to me, was just cushioning between Maitlin and the bad guys. Strategic cover. I couldn't protect Maitlin from front and rear simultaneously, so I chose to take the lead, stick close, and wrap her up snugly in her entourage.

“Those are fans, so don't panic,” I told Maitlin and her entourage. “The police are here to help with crowd control. Here's the plan: We'll put Ms. Maitlin in the center. I walk first, Ms. Maitlin behind me—Tim, you're behind Ms. Maitlin. Until we get in, you're her shadow. Rachel and Pilar, stay at her side. Walk close together, and don't stop moving until we're inside. Any questions?”

Nervous silence. Tim had paled two shades; maybe he'd figured out I wasn't
his
bodyguard. He obviously wanted to ask Maitlin to call it off, but he didn't have the nerve.

I gave Maitlin a reassuring bodyguard's smile. “I got you,” I said. “Let's do this.”

I slid the door open and climbed out. Autograph seekers waved paper scraps in my face as I helped Maitlin climb out, holding her hand. The police officers held the crowd back, and the rest of us formed a tight circle as we made our way toward the open gate. It was only a ten-yard walk, but the growing throng made it seem a football field away.

“Clear the way! Make room!” the male police officer shouted. His voice was almost lost in the excited shrieks as Maitlin smiled and waved to the crowd with her pro's public face.

Someone bumped against me, hard. I spun a portly, wild-eyed man around and pushed him back.

“Sofia! I love you!” he called, ignoring me. On closer glance, he looked sixteen, his scalp covered with tight, tiny ringlets that glistened in the sun. The female police officer gave me a disapproving scowl, so I let the boy go. He panted with elation that he had been within a few feet of Sofia Maitlin. I knew exactly what he would think about when he went to sleep that night.

“Open the gate!” I called out. I couldn't be a doorman and a bodyguard;
my eyes had other work to do. Milliseconds count. The female police officer ran to the gate, keeping it open for us while she barred anyone else from going in.

A glint of light and quick motion in the corner of my eye made me look to the right as a boy lunged at Maitlin. He was screaming something, and I saw nothing but blurred limbs. I moved into the space between his limbs, my palm tapping the point of his chin. His teeth clicked together, and he stumbled back. In that instant my eyesight resolved, and I was able to actually see who I faced: perhaps fifteen, thin as a rail, bright eyed, and with teeth like Chiclets.

And the dark shape he held in his right hand was a black, wallet-size autograph book.
Damn.
Just a fan trying to get a souvenir. I didn't have the chance to apologize, because his right hand flashed to his belt to grip the hilt of a seven-inch black blade.

He glared and crouched, holding the knife with an ice-pick grip.

I remembered my Filipino Kali knife training, and the number of times master instructor Cliff Sanders had warned me about proper hand positioning. The reverse grip was for suckers and Michael Myers wannabes. I seriously hoped I wouldn't have to dance on this boy.

“Go,”
I said, giving Tim's back a shove toward the open gate. I wanted Maitlin clear as long as that knife was nearby. We were closer to the gate than we were to the van. No one else in our group had seen the knife, including the cops. The boy's crouch nearly hid him in the pushing and shoving gawkers in Maitlin's wake.

My eyes tricked me as I watched the kid: The slender blade dissolved into a blur as he wove a web in the air, hypnotic and disorienting. Quite a display. He sliced the air two dozen times in three seconds, from every angle imaginable.

But he never lunged at me, and he wasn't tracking Maitlin. Even when he rose to his feet, his demeanor seemed more playful than threatening. He was politely warning me off, that was all. And I was receptive to his courtesy. That was us, just two gentlemen passing the time.

I slid back a step as the nearest witnesses in the crowd cheered. He danced, enchanting them with the fastest knife techniques I'd ever seen, his arms weaving like snakes. The boy must have been a local celebrity, because they called his name: “Ganya! Ganya!
Ummese Izulu!”

“Boy!” the driver shouted, annoyed. “Stop showing off!”

Ganya, if that was his name, ceased his dazzling display, panting. His smile was thin, tight, proud. Ganya made a little bow to me, then slipped into the crowd.

As I had stood with my back to our party, the others had slipped through the gate. I could only stare where the boy had disappeared. I'm fast, especially when I need to be, but the way he moved was a primer on how to bleed.

Toto, the driver, grinned at my unease, patting my back. “Kids, eh?” Toto said.

Like hell. I would be watching for that “kid” on the way out.

As soon as we crossed the threshold of Children First, the noise was gone.

The orphanage smelled like a school
and
a home, piles of fresh laundry and well-seasoned, roasting chicken and mystery meat. I would have known it was clean with my eyes closed. The building was brand new, probably less than a year old. Everything gleamed.

“Welcome, welcome,” said the black South African woman who met us inside the small foyer, clasping Sofia Maitlin's hands warmly. “We have looked forward to this
soooo
much!”

The woman had full, round cheeks and a whisper of gray hair in her cornrows. Her records said she was fifty-five, but she looked like she could be in her thirties. She was heavy for her height, but she commanded her weight with youthful energy.

Maitlin hugged her as if she were an elder relative. “I'm so glad to be back, Mrs. Kunene.”

Bessie Kunene was the sister-in-law of April's hostess, I remembered. Since April's hostess was a pastor who helped run a school for girls in a desperately poor area of Soweto, service apparently ran in the family.

“You know you must call me Mama Bessie! I'm sorry for that craziness outside. One of the girls who cooks for us, Buhle, told some friends at the high school. You see the result.”

“I just feel terrible for disrupting the children,” Maitlin said.

Mama Bessie clicked her teeth. “We're paying no attention.”

The building seemed secure. I glanced left at an empty classroom well
equipped with wooden tables and chairs for children of all ages. Bookshelves were lined with toys, books, and crafts. The walls exploded with colorful artwork, maps of Africa, and posters picturing Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama alongside Elmo and Barney.

But the room was deserted, eerily quiet. Where were the children?

There were rapid introductions to Maitlin's entourage. Tim was an assistant to Maitlin's agent, but they also seemed to be friends.

Mama Bessie gestured for us to follow her, grinning. “They've been waiting,” she said. “We're so proud of how patient they've been. They want to show off for you.”

Mama Bessie led us down a long hallway with two more activity rooms—one supplied with drums and other traditional musical instruments—and a staircase that led upstairs to what I guessed was the sleeping quarters. Toward the end of the hall, the smell of food got stronger; baked chicken, bread, vegetables. My stomach growled. Lunchtime. I had forgotten to eat.

The dining room was brightly lighted, with three tables of twelve children each, all seated before plates of food with their hands in the prayer position, most of them smiling wide except some of the youngest, fussier children. At the table closest to us, the children were as young as three, and the rest were seated by age. The table on the far side of the room had mostly eight- and nine-year-olds, but two girls at one end looked as old as twelve. They were all dressed in bright white T-shirts and dark blue shorts, like school uniforms. Two female servers in the back were filling the elder children's plates. Clanking spoons were the only sound.

After an invisible cue, the students suddenly spoke in unison:
“Molo,
Miss Maitlin!” they said. A three-year-old trailed the rest, and everyone laughed. Then the children sang in three-part harmony:
“‘Jesus loves me, this I know . . . because the Bi-ble tells me so . . .' ”

The room was washed in a pure brightness that had nothing to do with the sunlight.

The two older girls at the end of the table tittered to each other instead of singing, glancing my way. One of them was biracial, like a younger version of Chela, even in her rebel's attitude. Her hair was Chela's loosely kinked spirals. The similarities gave me goose bumps.