The Water Man's Daughter (4 page)

W
HEN
N
OMSULWA WAKES UP, THE MEN ARE ALREADY
out of the truck. There is nothing around. Crickets and cicadas break the silence of empty landscape.

“Mira!” Nomsulwa whispers hard. “Where are we?”

“Shhh, sisi. This is as good a place as any. We’ll bury the steel. By the time we pick it up again, everyone will have forgotten what happened.”

“No!” Nomsulwa yells this out loud. Her voice dies close to her, despite the volume, finding nothing to bounce off of. The other men stop unloading the truck and step behind Mira. He is buckling under their pressure, she thinks, like he so often does. “We are taking the steel to my mother’s house. We will not sell it, not now, not for a long time. It’s too dangerous.”

“Voetsek!” One of the men swears at the ground, but Nomsulwa knows it is aimed at her.

“Do you have something to say, bhuti?” she challenges him.

“I do.” Mira steps forward. “We do this work for you. We load this steel. We are starving. We need these pipes close, to be able to sell them fast … The pipes are staying here.”

“You’ll use that money to buy cigarettes and Black Label. Mira …” Nomsulwa tries to hide her dismay about Mira giving in to his friends. “Listen to what you are asking. You can’t risk it. I’m trying to protect you.”

The shortest man steps forward. “We don’t need you to protect us!”

“This place is the first field outside of the township. It will be the most likely place for us to hide it, the easiest spot. It’s also,” Nomsulwa turns to the quietest of the three men, “where you, Duma, were caught with the copper piping from the Premier’s house just three months ago. You really think this is the best spot for us?”

“If we bury it, they will never find it.”

“They will discover the newly turned earth immediately.” Nomsulwa doesn’t wait for his response. “If you are stupid enough to leave the steel here, I will turn us all in to the police.”

Mira stands inches away from Nomsulwa. He looks down his slender nose at the top of her head. “You can’t do that. For yourself, too. We can’t involve the police.”

Nomsulwa takes Mira by the arm and drags him away from the group. “Mira! What are you doing? Showing off in front of those tsotsis! Lalela mina! Load the steel back onto the truck. Get into the front and start driving the rest of the way to my mother’s.”

“We should sell it now. Get it off our hands.”

“Mira. You’re my family. We built this movement together. You want to see it fall apart because you and your buddies can’t be patient for a few weeks?”

“As long as we have these pipes we’re in danger.”

“You think I want to risk being caught? Now?!” For a second Nomsulwa lets the panic rise in her voice, imagines the police. “We have to be extra careful. The police will have informers all over the black market and we’ll be finished.”

Mira lets the words sink in. Away from his friends he seems more reasonable, finally listening rather than arguing. “Okay, but only a few weeks? You promise?”

“Ngiyakuthembisa.”
I promise
.

Mira walks back towards the truck and mutters to the group, “Over thirty thousand bucks. Can you believe it?”
The men grunt their frustration under the weight. When the pipes are reloaded onto the truck all five pile back into the front seat.

“It will be nighttime in an hour and a half at best. We won’t get home before dinner at this rate. Look what you’ve done with your antics.” Nomsulwa’s nerves have quieted down enough that she can afford to chide the men in the truck with her again.

Mira gazes glumly out at the darkening sky. Nomsulwa punches his arm in a friendly gesture and he flinches away. The truck lurches. She hears crickets sing, they serenade the group’s arrival into her mother’s township. Nomsulwa’s mother is already making tea in the kitchen for the visitors when Nomsulwa and her crew arrive. She shushes them to the back shed. With an uneasy wave through the open doorway to her daughter, she turns up church music from the radio to drown out the squawk of the chickens as they are moved aside for the bounty.

T
HE HIGHWAYS ARE WIDE AND TRAFFIC PEPPERS THE
lanes, leaving too much empty space. The sun is rising, maybe more brilliant and orange than back home, but Peter can’t tell. He takes in the shadows fleeing past. Beyond the transparent reflection of his angled nose and now hapless mop of hair, he can see rows of boxes pile onto one another just behind the line where the scraggly grass separating highway from ditch ends. Between the boxes, little lights flicker like ghosts, following them as they drive. The plush limousine tops a hill and Peter gets a quick look beyond the sentinel layer of structures. Shacks, paint chipped and sides falling, colours fading into the dusky morning, extend back from the highway in a massive wave. He sees a meadow of metal roofs and walls, slanting in unpredictable patterns. Smoke rises from spaces between the homes and mingles into a shallow cloud.

Africa.

“We will be at the hotel in less than an hour,” the driver says in a low voice with a thick accent. He wears an ornate uniform that looks as though it was plucked from the back of a British colonial soldier. Peter feels too tired to respond.
He rubs his arms to get the wet chill of an African fall morning from his skin.

Eighteen hours ago, he was in the pleasant warmth of Toronto in the early summer. The magnolia tree outside his house was still hanging on to its last flowers, and their smell mixed with that of the breakfast his daughter was preparing before rushing off to class. He was in a neatly pressed suit, telling jokes as Claire bustled about the kitchen. His long legs didn’t ache from the cramp and pressure of tiny airplane seats.

Eighteen hours ago, he wasn’t a little hungover from the champagne and Tylenol
PM
taken at the beginning of the flight. He wasn’t about to lug a large suitcase into yet another foreign hotel, tipping every black boy who ushered him through the maze of desks and identical doors. He wasn’t about to speedily unpack clothes stained with the smell of airport before skimming the papers for the day’s meetings.

There was a time when a trip to Johannesburg would have been a thrill – a chance to prove his stuff to the company management, but, more importantly, a chance to effect some real change. That was what they’d called it then:
real change
. Then, it was as if the permanent structures the taxi whizzed by, the large city that sprang up around them, and the row of fancy hotels they stopped before, were simple children’s toys. Peter could have picked up the pieces, changed the hats on the players, and created a little utopia all of his own. It certainly wasn’t the complex mess he sees now.
This is a country
, Peter thinks to himself as he exits
the car and hands ten rand to the doorman,
impervious to change
.

He has to be in the conference room in twenty minutes. There is no time for a hot shower before the day begins. The hotel is freezing, fans going in every room despite the cool morning air outside. He pulls a soft blue sweater over his dress shirt and a navy sports coat around his shoulders. The day will heat up, but at this moment it seems as though Peter never will. He breathes in deep and heads back out to the elevators.

The township councillor is bringing a delegation of community representatives who are willing to work with his company’s subsidiary, Amanzi, in controlling local resistance to the water systems. Peter doesn’t feel at all ready for a confrontation full of half-English sentences and misunderstandings. He knows from too many meetings in conference rooms like the one he is about to enter that local leadership is weak and often corrupt. The people hate this councillor as much as the company does. He cups his hands over his eyes and closes them. Little light trains play in front of his eyelids. For a moment he is back at home in the kitchen with his daughter while she tries to finish her reading for class. His wife is there too, rubbing his shoulders before ushering him out the door. Peter thinks once more of Claire laughing, feeling the calm it brings. Five more days and he will be on a plane back to Toronto and his family in his clean house that is always just the right temperature.

He walks very slowly down the last flight of stairs to the meeting. The man who must be the senior city councillor is sitting at the head of the table already. His suit is patched and has a little ring of dust around the cuffs of the jacket and pants. He has a beard, curled close to his skin, and small eyes set deep in his huge bald head.

“Mr. Matshikwe.” He holds thick fingers out to Peter.

“Peter Matthews.” Peter shakes his hand and sits down. He does not try to repeat the man’s name, stopped trying years ago. African names are impossible. The table is almost full, men tucked into corner seats, all wearing mismatched suits with dust rings. Mr. M., his name shortened in Peter’s head immediately, is the only one with a beard.

Alvin Dadoo is smiling widely. Peter is glad to see a familiar face, even if Alvin’s polite and accommodating nature tests Peter’s patience. Alvin doesn’t mean to be a nuisance. His obsequious demeanour covers a backbone Peter respects. The two men have been close at times, even though it is a closeness born of too many harrowing days spent tracking their way through the parts of South Africa any sensible executive avoids. Alvin isn’t sensible, and neither is Peter. That is why they are both so good at their jobs. But at the end of the day, Alvin is a babysitter, and so he must smile and nod and pretend agreement when men like Peter are around. More often than not, Peter is gripped with the urge to shake the pleasantries out of the small Indian man now standing next to him, to have just one real conversation.

The meeting begins slowly, constant translation whispers in the background as the black men huddle around one another. Peter waits for Alvin to make the introductory remarks.

“Gentlemen, as you know, we are here today to discuss the unfortunate recent incidents of sabotage of our water distribution system. Despite our efforts to disseminate accurate information, we have yet to convey to the local population the necessity for our services. In other words, they still aren’t pleased about having to pay for water services, and, despite the improvements we have brought to the system, many hold on to a misplaced nostalgia for the substandard water service we had under Apartheid. Efforts to convince local leadership otherwise have failed.” Alvin pauses and looks directly at the councillor. For just a second, annoyance peeks through Alvin’s formal exterior. He explains how even this morning they discovered that Phiri’s most recent infrastructure upgrade was undone last night by what must have been a crew of villagers armed with old shovels and flashlights. No police presence was requested to protect the asset.

“They were very busy, sir, the police,” Mr. M. interrupts. “There are only ten officers for the entire area, including the informal settlement. And they have only two cars.”

“I understand that, Mr. Matshikwe,” Alvin snaps back, “but their negligence cost our office an extra 60,000 rand. Perhaps police presence through the night would have been a better investment?”

Peter sees Mr. M. open his mouth to retort. His neighbour
touches his arm, a gesture to calm him down, and so Mr. M. sulks instead. He knits hit forehead and glares at Alvin.

Peter is used to this kind of tension at meetings and, as the regional director, it is his job to sweep in and resolve the impasses when negotiations with local politicians have broken down. He prepares to be authoritative.

“And why,” Peter interjects, his voice cold and quiet, “would you have taken it upon yourself to decide when it is appropriate to guard our company’s investment? This is not a job to be completed at your convenience. I expect you to have someone looking after the steel twenty-four seven.”

Mr. M. shakes his head. “You don’t understand, Mr. Matthews. No officer would agree to be stationed in the streets all night. It is too dangerous.”

Alvin sighs, exasperated. Peter stands up.

“I understand.” Peter sees Alvin start to interject and motions for him to be quiet. “I understand that your people understand money. So pay them more. Give them more guns. They’re worried about dying in the street? Make it something they can’t refuse. With the amount of company money you’ve squeezed out of us already –” Peter ends abruptly. He moves to silence Alvin again, but his outburst has stunned more than just the councillor and Alvin has moved to the farthest corner of his chair. Peter ignores the reaction. Apparently, Alvin hasn’t made it clear to the councillors just what they are dealing with. He knows as well as Peter that this project is vital to the company’s international expansion. The whole world is watching to see
how South Africa’s water experiment works out. The entire continent’s water system depends on this project. Peter is not going to let it fall apart here.

“What would it take to convince the people that the work we’re doing is to their benefit?” He tries another tactic, tries to soften his tone.

“Perhaps another ad campaign, this time only in the township, with the young male demographic in mind?” Mr. M. offers a quiet suggestion.