Out of Bounds (9 page)

“You learn.”

Rohan liked the simple reply. He should ask the boy about the cars. This was his chance, before they turned into the noisy main road and reached the squatter camp.

“I’ve seen you with wire cars. Do you make them yourself?”

“Yes—and my brother.”

“You make them together? Do you keep them all?”

“My brother—he sells them at the beach.” The boy waved his free hand in the direction of the sea. “The tourists—they like them.”

“Your cars are better than any I’ve seen in the shops! Do you get lots of money for them?”

“Mmhh!”
The boy made a sound something between a laugh and a snort. Rohan realized that he had asked another brainless question. Would they be staying in a shack if they got lots of money? Rohan had often seen his own father bargaining to get something cheaper from a street hawker. He tried to cover his mistake.

“There’s a shop in the mall where they sell wire
cars. They charge a lot and yours are a hundred times better!”

“We can’t go there. The guards—they don’t let us in.”

Rohan knew the security guards at the entrance to the mall. Some of them even greeted his parents with a little salute. Rohan had seen poor children hanging around outside. They offered to push your trolley, to clean your car—anything for a few cents. Sometimes Ma gave an orange or an apple from her shopping bag to a child. Other times she would just say “No thank you” and wave a child away. Ma never gave money. She said they might spend it on drugs. Rohan had never thought what it would be like to be chased away. How did the guards decide who could enter? How could the boy and his brother go and show the lady in the African Crafts shop his cars if they weren’t allowed in?

Rohan was quiet as they reached the main road and turned toward the squatter camp. The noise of vehicles roaring past was deafening. He never normally walked down here. Not by himself nor with anyone else. His family went everywhere by car. With all the locks down, of course. The only people who walked were poor people. His eyes
were drawn to a group of young men walking toward them. They were still some distance away, but already Rohan began to feel uneasy. They were coming from the crossroads that his dad always approached on full alert. Rohan knew how his father jumped the red lights when the road was clear, especially at night. Everyone had heard stories of gangs who hijacked cars waiting for the lights to change.

The handle had begun to feel like it was cutting into his fingers. The boy must have sensed something because he signaled to Rohan to lower the bucket. For a few seconds they each stretched their fingers.

“It’s too far? You want to go?” The boy was giving him a chance to change his mind. To leave and go back home. He had already helped carry the water more than half the way. He could make an excuse about the time. But the thought of running back to the house along the road on his own now worried him.

“No, it’s fine. Let’s go.” Rohan heard a strange brightness in his own voice. He curled his fingers around the handle again.

As they drew nearer the men, Rohan felt their
gaze on him and suddenly his head was spinning with questions. Why on earth had he offered to help carry the water? What did he think he was doing coming down here? And he hadn’t even yet entered the squatter camp itself!

“We go here.” The boy’s voice steadied him a little.

Rohan turned and stared up at his old ski slope. He felt the force of the young men’s eyes on his back as he and the boy began to ascend the rough track. Someone behind called out something in Zulu and, without turning, the boy shouted back.

The words flew so quickly into one another that Rohan didn’t pick up any even though he was learning Zulu in school. They must be talking about him, but he was too embarrassed—and frightened—to ask. He could feel his heart pumping faster and told himself it was because of the stiff climb. He needed to concentrate where he put each foot. The track was full of holes and small stones. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that the young men had also entered the squatter camp but seemed to be heading for a shack with a roof covered in old tires on the lower slope. A couple of them were still watching. He must just
look ahead and control his fear. As long as he was with the boy, he was safe, surely?

A bunch of small children appeared from nowhere, giggling and staring. He couldn’t follow their chatter but heard the word
“iNdiya!”
The boy ignored them until a couple of children started darting back and forth in front of them, sweeping up the red dust with their feet.

“Hambani!”
Rohan could hear the boy’s irritation as he waved them away. But the darting and dancing continued just out of reach.

“Hambani-bo!”
This time the boy’s voice deepened to a threat, and the cluster of children pulled aside with one or two mischievous grins. Beads of sweat had begun trickling down the boy’s face. With his own skin prickling with sticky heat, Rohan wondered at the wiry strength of the boy whose back, head, and bucket were still perfectly upright as they mounted the hill.

“It’s that one—we stay there.” The boy, at last, pointed to a structure of corrugated iron, wood, and black plastic a little further up. It was not far from the old fig trees. For a moment Rohan thought he would say something about his hideout which the first squatters had pulled down. But he
stopped himself. Maybe the boy had even been one of them!

As they drew nearer, they heard a woman moaning and a couple of other women’s voices that sounded as if they were comforting her. The boy lowered the bucket swiftly from his head and pushed aside a plywood sheet, the door to his home.

Rohan wasn’t sure what to do. He knew he couldn’t follow. The sounds from within scared him. The moans were rapid and painful. He remembered a picture in a book at school that had showed the head of a baby popping out between its mother’s legs. There had been an argument among his friends about how such a big head could possibly fit through a small hole. From what he could hear now, it must hurt terribly.

Rohan folded his arms tightly, trying not to show how awkward he felt. The little children were still watching but keeping their distance. They could probably also hear the cries. It would be hard to keep anything private here. The only other people nearby were two gray-haired men sitting on boxes a little lower down the hill. One of them was bent over an old-fashioned sewing machine placed
on a metal drum, a makeshift table. Normally Rohan would have been very curious to see what he was stitching, but now he was just grateful that both men were engrossed in talking and didn’t seem interested in him.

He turned to look up the hill—toward his house and the others at the top protected by their walls with wires, spikes, and broken bottles. When he had hidden in his hideout down here, he had always loved the feeling of being safe yet almost in his own separate little country. But that had been a game and he could just hop over the wall to return to the other side. Surrounded now by homes made out of scraps and other people’s leftovers, this place seemed a complete world away from the houses on the hill. In fact, how was he going to get home? If he didn’t leave soon, Ma would be back before him. Would the boy at least take him part of the way through the squatter camp? He needed him to come outside so that he could ask him.

“What do you want here?”

Rohan spun around. A man with half-closed eyes and his head tilted to one side stood with his hands on his hips, surveying Rohan from head to foot. His
gaze lingered for a moment on Rohan’s watch.

“I…I brought water with…with…” Rohan stammered. He hadn’t asked the boy his name! Panic-stricken, he pointed to the door of the shack. The man stepped forward, and Rohan stumbled back against the wall of corrugated iron. The clattering brought the boy to the door. The man immediately switched into loud, fast Zulu. The boy spoke quietly at first, but when the man’s voice didn’t calm down, the boy’s began to rise too. Even when he pointed to the bucket and Rohan, the man’s face remained scornful. Rohan was fully expecting to be grabbed when a sharp baby’s cry interrupted the argument. The boy’s face lit up, and the man suddenly fell silent. Rohan’s heart thumped wildly as the man’s eyes mocked him before he turned and walked away.

Rohan folded his arms tightly, trying not to shake. Before he could say anything, a lady appeared behind the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You have a little sister!” She smiled at the boy and then at Rohan. She looked friendly but tired. Her cheeks shone as if she too had been perspiring. It was obviously hard work helping to deliver a baby.

“Tell your mother thank you for the water. You really helped us today.”

Rohan managed to smile back.

“It’s OK.” His voice came out strangely small.

“Solani will take you back now—before it gets dark.”

Rohan felt a weight lifting. He did not need to ask.

The sun was getting lower and made long rodlike shadows leap beside them as they scrambled down the slope. Knowing the boy’s name made Rohan feel a little easier, and he wondered why he hadn’t asked him earlier. He told Solani his own, and the next thing he was telling him about riding on garbage can lids down the ski slope. Solani grinned.

“It’s good! But this place—it’s a road now. We can’t do it. The people will be angry if we knock someone down.”

Rohan understood that. But what he didn’t understand was why the man with scornful eyes had been so angry with him. And why had those other young men looked at him so suspiciously? He decided to ask Solani.

“They don’t know you. Sometimes people come
and attack us. So if a stranger comes, they must always check first.”

When they reached the road, neither spoke. The hometime traffic would have drowned their voices anyway. Rohan thought about what Solani had said about him being a stranger. Surely they knew that he was from one of the houses on top of the hill. The houses that also did not welcome strangers. Like the squatters.

They parted at the top of the hill. Rohan was anxious to reach the house before his mother returned, and Solani was eager to see his baby sister. Opening the electronic gates, Rohan was relieved that his mother’s car was neither in the yard nor the garage. He dashed upstairs to his room and peered out of the window over to the squatter camp. The evening was falling very rapidly. His mother would be home any minute—and his dad. Neither liked to drive in the dark if they could help it.

Rohan fixed his eyes on the deep crimson scar, hoping to see Solani climbing the slope. How strange to think that he had been there himself less than half an hour ago. In that other world. Yes! There was Solani! A tiny, wiry figure bounding
up the hill. Not hampered this time with a container of water on his head. Rohan watched Solani weave through other figures traveling more slowly until three quarters of the way up the hill, he darted off and disappeared into the darkening shadow that was his home.

Rohan surprised his parents by joining them for the eight o’clock news. The story about the rescue of mother and baby from the floods in Mozambique was repeated.

“Sophia Pedro and her baby daughter Rositha were among the lucky few. Many thousands of Mozambicans are still waiting to be lifted to safety….”

This time the reporter added their names. Rohan observed the mother more closely. Had she also cried and moaned like Solani’s mother? With the roaring waters underneath, how many people had heard her?

“It’s nice to see these South African soldiers doing some good,” said Ma when the news was finished.

Rohan wished he could say what he too had done that afternoon. But he feared the storm that it would let loose and went upstairs to his bed
room. Before slipping between his sheets, he peered out once again through the bars at the hill swallowed up by the night. He thought he saw a light still flickering in Solani’s home and wondered how many people were tucked inside the sheets of iron, plastic, and wood. He prayed that Cyclone Gloria would keep well away.

Next morning, the glint of metal beside the gate caught his eye from the front door. His dad was reversing the car out of the garage. Rohan ran across the drive. There, just inside the gate, was a wire car. A small, perfect Merc! Who could it be from, except Solani? He must have slipped it through the bars of the gate in the early morning. Quickly Rohan pushed it behind a cluster of scarlet gladioli. If his parents saw it, they would want to know from where it had come. They would discover he had gone out of bounds…. Well, so had Solani! Each of them had taken a risk. He needed time to think. In the meantime, the car would have to be his secret. Their secret. His and Solani’s.

1948: The Dare

Afrikaner Nationalists take over the government. They promise to tighten racism through apartheid laws. Earlier whites-only governments (supported mainly by English speakers) have already passed many laws that discriminate against black South Africans. The African National Congress has protested peacefully for years.

1949: The Noose

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act.
Black and white South Africans are forbidden to marry.

1950: The Noose

Population Registration Act.
Everyone must be classified according to a so-called “racial group:” “White” “Colored” “Indian” “Native” or “Bantu,” i.e. Black African. The definitions are scientific nonsense, but they become law. Classification affects everything about a person’s life. Some families are split when children of mixed heritage are classified
differently because of differences in the shade of their skin or curliness of their hair.

The Noose

The Group Areas Act.
People are forced to live in separate areas according to the “racial group” in which they have been put.

One Day, Lily, One Day

The Suppression of Communism Act.
People are listed as “communists” if they actively fight against apartheid. They can be banned from meeting other people, confined to a particular area, or banished to a faraway place.

1952: One Day, Lily, One Day

The Abolition of Passes Act.
All Africans are forced to carry a single passbook that controls where they can live and work.

1953: The Typewriter; The Playground

The Bantu Education Act.
African children are given a different syllabus that prepares them only for low-grade work.

The Noose; One Day, Lily, One Day

The Separate Amenities Act.
Black and white people are forbidden to use the same parks, beaches, buses, trains, sports grounds, cinemas, etc. A black nursemaid may go on a “white” beach if she is looking after a white child but cannot go into the water.

1955: One Day, Lily, One Day

At the Congress of the People, 3,000 delegates from across the country and of all backgrounds meet on open ground near Johannesburg. They declare the Freedom Charter. It includes the words “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white….”

1956: One Day, Lily, One Day

One hundred and fifty-six South Africans of all backgrounds are arrested and charged with treason. Some remain on trial until 1961, when they are found not guilty.

1960: One Day, Lily, One Day

Police open fire at Africans marching peacefully to Sharpeville Police Station without their passbooks.
They intend to be arrested as a protest. Instead, over two hundred are injured and sixty-nine killed, including children. A State of Emergency is declared. The African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress are banned and many thousands are arrested.

1961–4: The Gun

Nelson Mandela and others go “underground.” The ANC forms
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)
or Spear of the Nation to train soldiers and fight an “underground” war. They begin with bombing electricity pylons and buildings. But in 1963, Nelson Mandela and eight others, including two white comrades, are put on trial and face the death sentence. Eight are sentenced to life imprisonment. Many others are arrested, kept in jail without trial, tortured, sentenced to long terms in jail. Some are sentenced to death.

1976: The Typewriter

Thousands of black secondary school students in Soweto protest when the government says half their lessons will, from now on, be taught in Afrikaans. Police open fire, killing children. Anger explodes
across the country. Hundreds of young people are killed in demonstrations and many more thousands are thrown into jail. Many young people escape from the country, some to train with MK.

1985–6: The Gun

The government calls another State of Emergency. Despite its harsh laws, the struggle against apartheid has still continued within the country and through freedom fighters coming across the borders.

1990: The Playground

Nelson Mandela is released from jail to help negotiate a new system of government. The world watches on television as he walks out of prison after twenty-seven years in jail.

1994: The Playground

South Africa holds its first free, democratic elections. The African National Congress forms the government, and Nelson Mandela is elected President. Apartheid laws are cancelled but work now has to begin to try and repair the terrible damage.

1995: The Playground

At the beginning of the New Year, for the first time, schools must open their doors to all children. Some white parents and teachers still want to resist.

2000: Out of Bounds

The new century begins with floods that devastate parts of southern Africa, especially Mozambique. The South African army, which in the past has dropped bombs on Mozambique, helps in the rescue of flood victims.