PART ONE
ALEX
1
If your job is to hunt down chaos, you become familiar with noise. And squalor. Crowds. The middle of nowhere. If you report the news long enough, sooner or later you’ll end up in a place where you think no one can survive and nothing ever happens. But you’ll be wrong. People carry on with their business, and nowhere is just another place to do exactly that. Maybe it’s even easier, because there are fewer people who see. Who remember.
There are many such places in the world, not all of them bad. Some are among the most beautiful places I know. A few miles north of Port Nolloth, just before you reach South Africa’s border with Namibia, if you keep the sea on your left, fixed west—everything else gradually disappears, until there’s only you and the silence.
It’s the same when you drive into the tall dunes even farther north, beyond Walvis Bay, into the Namib Desert.
And then there’s this place in Tanzania, somewhere between Arusha and Dar es Salaam. Not a place with a name; more just a huddle of dwellings, like lost cattle in tall grass.
Of course there is a bar. The middle of nowhere always has a watering hole.
The occasion is a wedding, and I find myself standing in the shade of an azure-blue hall, beside a peeling, hand-painted Coca-Cola sign, watching the passing parade of family, friends, and curious children. The beer in my hand is lukewarm, and the sun is scorching.
I don’t know why I felt obliged to be on time. People are bustling, carrying food, chatting, comparing dresses and hairstyles. And the pastor will clearly sit and drink tea under the umbrella trees for another hour or so.
It’s the kind of day when time doesn’t matter.
I turn away, looking to make myself useful. Maybe someone needs help with the chairs or the drinks.
The first thing I notice is her hair: black and abundant. She gets up from the fallen tree she’s been sitting on in the small clearing in front of the hall, grips the Nikon camera between her legs, gathers the curls into her hands and ties them up behind her head. Her purple T-shirt proclaims that Dr. Seuss is always right. She’s probably six feet tall, her body that of a swimmer—willowy and lithe, her shoulders broader than most people would consider attractive on a woman.
And me? I know in the blink of an eye. That’s how it is. That’s how you fall in love: in a flash. In less time than it takes to draw a breath.
How utterly bizarre.
I walk up to her and clear my throat, hoping she’ll look up.
It works. Her eyes are blue. Closer to violet, in fact.
The beer is in the way, so I move it to my other hand. She does the same with the Nikon. It’s a fluid, practiced movement, as if the camera with its gray lens weighs nothing. She shakes my hand. Her skin is cool, despite the day’s searing heat.
“Alex Derksen,” I say.
“Ranna. I thought I was the only one crazy enough to cover this part of the world. What are you doing here?”
“Is it that obvious I’m a journalist?”
She waves two fingers in the air, a multitude of silver bangles shifting up her arm. “Your eyes keep on weighing the scene, looking for an angle. Condensing it all into three hundred words or less.” She laughs. “I’ve been watching you for a while.”
Is that a compliment? I hope so.
She switches off the Nikon, then switches it back on. “You haven’t said why you’re here.”
Something about her faint American accent jogs my memory, but I don’t know why.
“Same reason as you.”
“A photo?”
“A story. Same thing, isn’t it?”
I run my hand over my jaw and wish I had shaved this morning. I need a haircut as well; my hair is curling on my neck.
I sip my beer and try not to stare. Her restless, suntanned hands keep touching and letting go, fidgeting with her hair, the camera. Fine muscles ripple along her arms every time she rotates the lens. But most of all it’s her eyes that hold my attention. She blinks slowly, deliberately, as if she’s taking photos and storing them. As if it’s important to remember everything.
Suddenly her hands stop moving. She laughs as the silence between us persists. Swinging the camera over her shoulder, she leans forward and whispers, “It’s your turn to say something.”
“Sorry.” I shake my head, embarrassed. “I write a lot better than I speak. Wait till you see me at a computer. At least sixty words a minute.”
The wind has picked up. Fine dust swirls and eddies around our feet. She moves her sunglasses from the top of her head to her nose. Reverses the process. Her eyes look searchingly into mine.
“Who do you work for?”
“AP.”
“Ah, the wires. Figures. The papers don’t bother much with correspondents these days.”
“You sound upset.”
“Aren’t you? The Internet, Instagram, and Twitter have taken over the news cycle. People can hardly concentrate on anything longer than a hundred and forty characters. And I can’t tell you how many of my shots have been canned because a photo of Duchess Kate in a new dress will get more hits and sell more copies.”
I raise my beer in response. “True.” I’ve never worked beyond the borders of South Africa before, but after almost fifteen years I know the news business well enough to realize what she’s saying is correct.
“How many photos have you shot?” I point at the expensive Nikon hanging by her side like an AK-47.
“Hundreds. I don’t keep track.”
“How many have they used?”
“A few. That I know of.”
“Where?”
“I’m a hired gun, so in various publications. The Washington Post, the New York Times. One or two in the Independent.”
She turns to retrieve the half-full beer next to the log where she was sitting and takes a few sips. A small boy dressed up in a striped suit and tie trots by, carrying a can of Coke as if it were a small treasure.
“And you?” she asks. “How many stories?”
“About ten or so.”
“Ah, fresh meat.”
“I arrived last month.”
“You’ll learn. No one gives a damn about what happens in Africa, no matter who’s writing the story.”
I shrug. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. Except when there’s a bombing, or when the American president or a Hollywood celebrity arrives on a visit. Or if it’s about AIDS or Ebola. Some terrible disease usually beats everything else. Sometimes even the Duchess of Cambridge.”
She laughs as if she believes me but gives no reply. I notice where her gaze is lingering and turn away. I know what’s coming.
“You couldn’t have gotten that here. A month isn’t long enough.”
Most people take a bit longer to mention the L-shaped scar under my left eye.
“It’s an old injury. An encounter with a tractor. It’s nothing,” I lie.
She shakes her head, a crooked smile on her lips, as if she knows all about the stories you tell when you don’t feel inclined to explain.
I like her even better.
Before I can ask how she ended up at the wedding, I have to jump out of the way of a beat-up white Isuzu truck heading straight for us. On the back a gaggle of women in peach-colored dresses laugh raucously.