The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2009

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 some whites in Joburg, but it wasn’t easy. If you’re black you have to be out of town by 6 or 7 every night be- cause of the pass laws. You can’t go most places with whites, so you have to meet at their place, which is OK unless the neighbors see you too often and complain, or get suspicious and call the police. Can’t they come out to the locations where the blacks live and visit you there? Yes, sometimes. They’re supposed to have a pass, but the police usually don’t care. He laughed. Sometime later an old Bedford flatbed stopped. The driver leaned his arm and his head out the window and waved. “Where are you going?” “Cape Town.” “That’s where I’m going. Hop in.” “Could you take my friend here, too?” The driver looked at Joshua. “He’s only going to Hopetown,” I said. The driver stared at me. “He can ride in back,” I added. For a moment he said nothing. He sat up in his seat and glared down the road. Then, without turning again, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the truck. Joshua climbed up, and I got in the cab. “I don’t like kaffirs. I don’t pick ’em up, usually,” he said after we got going. But that only reminded him of the good old days in the Congo. I didn’t ask his name. I didn’t say much after he started talking. I would have been more comfortable in back, but I had to sit in the cab. Hell, it’s a ride, I told myself. Joshua’s going home, and I’m going to Cape Town. It’s only a lousy ride. After a while we were getting close to Hopetown. The Orange River was directly ahead of us. We crossed the steel bridge and went up the hill. Hopetown was at the top, a bunch of shacks on the hill overlooking the river. Joshua was off the truck before it stopped rolling. I got out to shake his hand. He was trembling with excitement. F O C U S You had to keep to your side of the line. You were one thing, or you were the other.