Heights have no effect on me, but for Ranna it’s quite the opposite. That’s why she’s sitting at the back, near the vomit bags the French pilot, cursing steadily, has tossed back with one hand as she pushes the Puma in against the wind with the other.
In a few minutes, when we’re hovering over the water, Ranna will have to move forward and take her shots as if she has no fear. The New York Times and the Guardian have no use for fear. They want brave, insightful photographs of the devastation brought about by too much rain.
And I, who always attract chaos, must look and listen and write. About every emotion and sensation. Like five years ago in Alexandra, near Joburg’s high-rises, when the Jukskei River flooded its banks and swept away a nursery school and 71 squatters’ shanties.
And here I am again. Water. Too much water.
Life repeats itself relentlessly.
The pilot looks over her shoulder and holds a thumb in the air to indicate that she’ll hover while we get our shots. I signal that I understand and beckon Ranna closer.
The earth underneath us is covered with muddy brown water. To our right, a few cattle and their herdsmen are stranded on an island created by the rain. Next to them I can see the battered roofs of a cluster of huts, everyone who used to live there hopefully already evacuated.
Neither the cattle nor the boys seem perturbed. Merely surprised at the sight of the metal dragonfly overhead. Were they left behind to look after the village’s most precious asset?
I turn back. Where’s Ranna? Still fidgeting with the Nikon.
I beckon to her again, point to the space between my legs. When at last she shuffles forward, I see her detach from the fear. Her expression becomes serene, her eyes a dark, intense blue.
She sits down next to me and motions for me to put my arm around her waist. I do as she asks. She slides down and wriggles herself in between my knees, signaling that I should hold her more tightly. Then, with the monotonous whop-whop of the chopper drowning out every other sound, she leans out through the door.
And even farther.
I dig my heels into the Puma’s steel belly. Under her T-shirt, the muscles of her back are knotted at first, then they relax as she forgets about me.
I know better than to be afraid on her behalf. Ranna is who she is, and expecting her to change would be pointless.
Hours seem to pass before the pilot taps me on the shoulder. Bring her back, the woman gestures.
I begin to pull Ranna back inside. She fights me at first, then surrenders.
At last she’s sitting beside me again. The steel cable inside her is taut. Her flushed throat and the smile around her mouth, filled with life, betray the adrenaline rush.
I’ve never seen her more beautiful.
She shouts something, but her words are scattered by the drone of the chopper’s ascent.
“What?” I shout back.
Her lips form the words again, more slowly this time. I smile when I understand.
“I love you too!” I shout, and know without a doubt that this is one of the best days of my life.
The adrenaline lasts all the way home. Wet through, we duck into Ranna’s apartment. She struggles with her boots and finally kicks them off. The wet jeans are harder to get out of. She curses under her breath as the material stubbornly clings to her skin.
I interrupt her attempt to undress and turn her around to face me. I draw her close, kissing her shoulder where the tanned skin shows through her blue shirt. Then higher up, on her neck. She moans, long and deep. I pull her hips closer and feel her hunger take over, her mouth seeking mine.
She fumbles for the buttons of my shirt. Loses patience. “Dammit.” She rips one off. Another.
I understand. I know about now, not later. Later dissolves in time. In perhaps. In maybe. Now is all that really exists.
She tugs at the top button of my Levi’s. My breathing quickens. I grow hard. A sound escapes from her throat. She pushes me deeper into the apartment. Up against the corner cabinet. The bookcase next to the TV. Equally impatient, I spin us around so that her back is against the books. I hoist her up against me. She pulls away and tears the shirt from my body.
Now.
With one hand I search for her jeans. Struggle with my own. Give up. Lower her to the floor and peel off her wet jeans completely so that she can step out of them. Then my own. I lift her again, my hands around her waist. She wraps her legs around my hips. Her nails dig into my back.
Around us books fall to the ground. Primal Fear. The Mating Habits of Butterflies. The Dream Taker.
Inside.
Now.
Now.
Now.
14
The weather, like sports and movie stars, is always news. Everyone wants to know whether tomorrow will be hot or cold, even though there’s nothing they can do about it. Some of the worst days in history have been those when the weather headlined the news. Days and names no one will ever forget.
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. Hurricane Katrina. Japan’s 2011 tsunami. They made the front pages every time.
When the temperature in Oudtshoorn rises to 116 degrees Fahrenheit and six people and 130 ostriches die of heat exhaustion, it’s news. When it snows where it hasn’t snowed for a hundred years, it makes the papers. The same when it hails. When the wind blows. When it doesn’t rain. When it rains. And rains. And rains.
When the first villages were flooded days ago, the story was hidden on page six in the local papers, eclipsed by stories of a minister’s unruly illegitimate child. When the flood was on its way and it seemed as if Dar es Salaam was going to be swept out to sea, the story moved from page six to the front page.
The day before yesterday, when three British tourists and a journalist sent word to London by email that they were stranded in Zanzibar, the country’s tourist island paradise, it made headlines in four overseas newspapers and on eleven websites. Not even Lion Mining has managed that.
And then it happened. The thing that changed everything. The thing that made everything worse. Chaos.
The flood reached Oyster Bay, the beach resort of the Dar es Salaam elite. The three-story vacation home of IT billionaire William K. Jones III was swept into the sea, along with three other houses. Within thirty-six hours a CNN correspondent was reporting from the scene. After all, Billy Jones was an American citizen—and not just any American citizen. He was the man who discovered how to make a computer work at six times the normal speed. Moreover, he was an eligible bachelor with a bad-boy reputation and a long line of A-list women in his wake.
A day later his body washed up on the beach. It topped the news cycle everywhere.
The rain fell unremittingly, as one by one newspeople began to arrive at the waterlogged airport. All the newspapers and TV stations without correspondents in Tanzania were sending in their staff. The town was suddenly teeming with journalists, camerapeople, and photographers with hungry eyes.
But even before the first plane ungracefully skidded to a halt on the wet tarmac, Ranna and I were there. We were the ones to discover the body, after all.
We’re collecting seashells, walking slowly, our jeans rolled up, like children or old women during long, rainy June vacations on the West Coast. As if it really matters. As if it’s a competition. Ignoring the bad weather, we sift through the wet sand in search of the perfect shell. The one that has managed to survive the churning waves.
Earlier this morning, out of pure boredom, we had decided to come to the beach. Ranna closed her book and said you can only read and watch TV for so long.