The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2009

Then he climbed back to hand down his suitcase and the bundles to me. We shook hands again. “Dankie, baas,” he said to the driver. He ran up toward the shacks, his suitcase flying from his side as he ran. The driver smirked at me when I climbed back in. “Where’d you pick him up?” “Outside Christiana. He’s going home. He hasn’t been home in four years.” “Is that what he told you?” Frowning, he let the engine idle. He turned away fromme, then something caught his at- tention outside. I tried to look around him to see what it was. Through the open window I saw it was Joshua. He was saying something to the driver from the side of the road. The driver seemed put out. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I guessed Joshua had left something on the truck. The driver didn’t want to bother. He put the truck in gear and we started to move, but suddenly he wheeled in his seat, hit the brakes and screamed something out the window. I slammed into the dashboard. “What did you say to me? What? What did you say?” He grabbed a leather whip fromunder the seat and jumped out the door. I saw Joshua’s face when the driver started after him; then I jumped out and ran around to the back, but no one was there. I ran to the front of the truck. Joshua was stand- ing between the driver and the truck with his back to the ra- diator. The driver had him by the throat, the whip raised in his hand. I shouted at him. “Hey! Stop it! Let go!” The driver ignored me. His face was inches from Joshua’s. He jerked the whip over his head and snarled. “I’ll teach you something, kaffir!” I grabbed him by the shoulder. He shook me off but lost his grip on Joshua’s throat. Joshua wriggled free and darted into the road. I didn’t see the car until it was almost on top of him. It seemed to come out of nowhere, silently, a mechanical wraith, in slow motion almost, like it was hardly moving. There was a loud thud like a drum. Probably the brakes screeched, but I don’t remember. I ran up to Joshua. He had fallen under the wheels. His head was flat as a broken pumpkin. The car took its time stopping. It sat in the distance, brake lights on, for a long time. Then slowly it reversed. The truck driver looked down the road at the car, folding the whip. Then he put the whip back in the cab. I stood by the body but tried not to look at it again. I felt sick and my knees were weak. I walked over to the truck and leaned against it. “God damn you,” I said to the driver, sobbing. “God damn you.” An obese red-faced man in a safari suit got out of the car and looked briefly at Joshua. He put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. Then he turned to the driver. “It was his own fault, wasn’t it? I mean, he ran out right in front of me, didn’t he?” The man’s wife got out. She didn’t look at Joshua. She held her left hand to her temple lightly, like she was afraid of cracking her skull if she pressed too hard. She tried to speak, but the words didn’t come out. She stood there for a while, mouthing the words and very lightly touching her left temple. Finally she said something. “Is he dead, Will?” “Yes.” “Oh, no!” “He’s dead, all right.” “What can we do?” “Nothing. I told you, he’s dead.” “Just leave him here?” “He won’t care. It’s too bad.” “Oh, Will.” “Well, what should we do? Put him in the boot and cart him to the nearest police station?” “I don’t know.” “Wait for his family to show up, I suppose.” “I don’t know.” “I am not going to get involved with a bunch of scream- ing blacks!” He stamped his foot angrily. “It was his own fault. He’s dead now and there’s nothing we can do.” She held her head. “But we killed him.” “We can tell the police later.” “Oh, we should, shouldn’t we, Will?” He looked at the body again and cursed. Careful not to get blood on themselves, he and the truck driver dragged the body off the road. After they pushed it into a ditch, the husband handed a few 10-rand notes to the truck driver, who put them in his shirt pocket. 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 9 F O C U S People were gathering on a hill above the truck.