THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: Love, in slow motion
Written by Mlungisi Radebe
Italy, Florinas. We went there one summer, honouring an invitation. We’d been invited by the Mayor of Sardinia, to come and exhibit to his fellow countrymen our South African heritage.
A series of thoughts coursed through my head like water from a spring, paving its way into every corner of the mind. Art had taken me to many a place before but never that far from home. It had taken me to places I knew only in books, places I had never thought were real. Never did it cross my mind that it would ever lead me into being a wingless bird, into spending fifteen hours closer to God.
A lot of scenarios were created in my head, the scariest of all being a crash. The possibility of such a devastating, gruesome incident nurtured itself in my brain. From seeds of nostalgia came to bloom a nerve-wrecking phobia. At the same time there was inexplicable giddiness, a warmth kindled by eagerness, by anticipation.
From memory, I could not draw out a single reason for which to fear Sardinia, for I hadn’t even the faintest of ideas about it. In fact, I hadn’t known a thing about the place before fate adorned our path with the mayor’s invite. The sole discomfort I had sprouted from a frightening reality, from the fact that I had to board two planes. We only live once, I reminded myself when uneasiness began to shoot out of every pore.
As the day of departure drew to a close, my fear enhanced, spiraling out of control like the feelings I once had for Nathalie Echeverria — a talented Colombian dancer I approached too late. By the time we were in love, I had to say goodbye. All without a kiss, without a hug, without a promise of everlasting love. But, anyway. . .
I had a series of sleepless nights, until the big day finally came knocking at dawn. Mama held my both my hands into hers. And though no word left her scarlet lips, there was something beautiful in her silence, something glorious and enticing — a prayer that knew a direct path to God’s majestic palm.
“Go with God, child,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Our ancestors will watch over you. When you are sad, look at the sky — you will see light in your journey. Make us proud.”
A tear rolled out, silently.
From Durban it took us exactly two days to reach Rome. At the airport was a bus waiting for us, a ride which took about five hours. Then we boarded a ship, which stretched the forty-eight-hour trip into fifty-six. Again, we took another bus to where we’d reside — a school — a total of sixty-two hours.
On every wall hung murals and drawings which were, without doubt, for the amusement of the little ones. None of that mattered much because my whole body was itching; we hadn’t had a bath in three consecutive days. We’d only relied on airport bathrooms to wash our faces and armpits and to brush our teeth, which was gross but, at the same time, captivating.
The first thing I noticed in Sardinia, which I had not anticipated, was the sun taking a nap at around 8pm. During the day you hardly see people. The windows are always shut, the blinds drawn. Vineyards and sweat peas and wallflowers didn’t seem to live harmoniously on people’s walls. It was like a ghost town, as though nothing with a pulse had ever taken a breath around the place. At evening. . . that is when you start seeing people — lots and lots of people, gallivanting — doing things we only do at noon in my country.
For breakfast we had bread, which was dryer than the Sahara desert; after every bite I had to check if I still had teeth. The way it was so dry, you could land a person in a comma by just throwing it at their head. Only the tea, coffee, juice, wine, and water would make up for the less enjoyable breakfasts. For lunch and dinner, we’d consume lots and lots of pasta. Sometimes they’d put cheese in it, sometimes tuna, sometimes olives, sometimes things I knew not by name.
That amount of pasta was not good for my health. I had a lot of difficulties adjusting, which prompted me to scout for a supermarket. With the assistance of our tour guide, I found one. The cashier only spoke Italiano; he did not know even a single English word. As the language barrier grew thicker, a girl with a smile as wide as my grandmother’s heart walked to us. “Ciao,” she said, waving at me.
“Hello.”
“Ah, Inglese?”
“Yes, yes.”
“My English. . . eh. . . not so good,” she giggled, beautifully. “I speak fifty-fifty.”
“Help me out. I want to ask him if I can use my MasterCard to buy groceries.”
“Ah, groceries!”
Her eyes radiated with excitement, emitting a warmth I could feel on my face. It was as though she’d been waiting a millennium to put her English in the conurbation of dialogue. She said something to the guy in Italiano; he nodded. So, I thanked her — and she smiled, and continued with her shopping. Her eyes were, like, two little pearls; she had the glow of ten thousand sapphire crystals.
I did not find anything to consume, besides chips and a can of Coca Cola. As I marched to the till, there she was again. She grinned. “What is your name?”
I hadn’t expected the question to come that sudden, in that accent. I knew she would never be able to pronounce my first name, so I gave her another — a nom de plume. “Erik. I’m Erik.”
“Guiliana.”
“Nice to meet you, Guiliana.”
“Where you from, Erik?”
“South Africa.”
“You come for the festival?”
“To dance, yes.”
“In Florinas?”
“Different cities. But on the thirteenth, we’ll dance here in Florinas. By the church.”
“Fantastic! I will come see you dance.”
“Would you like an ice cream?”
“Ah… okay.”
And that was it — the beginning of our friendship. She was mesmerising, angelic. I had to speak slowly, for her to get what I was saying. I loved how her eyes emitted their perfection in a poetic way, how she bit her nails when she could not find the right English words; how she would bury her face in her hands when she struggled to explain something.
On the hours I was free, we went for ice cream dates, movie nights. Sometimes, I would struggle to say something in her language and she would laugh at me until there were tears in her eyes. But, slowly, we grew to understand one another — not just in the lingo, but in every sense of the word. We became compatible, in-synch — our hearts began to beat as one, a spectacular union.
One night our performance went so well that she was dancing up and down, congratulating us on a job well-done. I am not sure if it was by accident, or impulse, but she kissed me. I froze, she froze. For five seconds straight neither of us spoke. Slowly. . . awkwardness began to creep in, thickening in the air. As she was about to seek pardon, I kissed her back. She froze.
“Take my hand, darling,” I said to her, extending my hand to her, “the moon is ready to sing for us.”
Our relationship was hotter than her city in the afternoons, intense. Its flames were as colourful as the rainbow after a drizzle, so hot it would intimidate lavas and make furnaces budge. The romantic movie nights, the late-night walks through the city landscapes, the way we’d embrace one another in the middle of the street like we’d been brought into this world to live for one another, how we’d dance to melodies coming out of each other’s heart throbs, were all a savoury memory — one worth revisiting, reliving. She would hold me with care, as though I was something brittle, something made of paper. She would tell me it was her first time falling in love with someone genuinely, that deep — wholeheartedly.
On our two weeks anniversary, we enjoyed a lovely dinner. I bought candles, had roses scattered all over the table. I had paid my roommates to make themselves distant. I cleaned the whole place like I was planning to see my reflection on the floor and walls. I added an African touch on the pasta — her favourite meal — and she finished the plate like she’d been hungry her whole life. She called me the “culinary Picasso”, which made me laugh.
A relationship that perfect, that novel-like, was ruined by a single moment of recklessness. She had raised the inevitable, the fact that time was running out for us yet there I was, making her fall too deep when I was going to leave her in the end. We fought, so much that I left her apartment in tears. It was as though I had lost control over my senses — my ears weren’t functioning, my heart thumping.
When sense returned, the car was too close — it was impossible to outrun fate. A reckless driver ruined everything for me — for us. I saw her looking at me, saying something. Even in that moment, I admired her beauty — her perfection. Slowly, her voice dissipated. . . her face, too. I woke up to my mother’s tearful eyes, her hands warming mine. As soon as she saw me looking at her, she closed her eyes — as would a person in prayer. She expressed her gratitude to God, for bringing me back to her. I thought, for a moment, I had lost my mind. Why was I seeing my mother, whom I’d left in South Africa when I was supposed to be in Italy, Sardinia, Florinas, with my Giuliana?
“Giu . . . Giulia. . . where’s . . .”
“For days, you’ve been saying that name,” said mother, curiously. “Who is this Giuliana you speak of?”
“Where am I?”
“You are home, in South Africa. When they brought you home, they said you had been hit by car.”
PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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