Ranna is still rooted to the same spot. The rusty pickup idles a hand’s breadth away from her body.
“Hamjambo. Habari gani,” she greets the women.
She puts down her beer and kneels in the dust, the ground neatly swept this morning for any errant leaves. Click-click-click goes the Nikon.
One by one the passengers climb down, careful not to spoil their outfits.
“Another one, Miss America!” shouts the oldest of the women when she’s finally on solid ground. “But just wait first.”
Ranna nods.
The woman, probably in her fifties, motions for the driver to leave before positioning everyone for the picture. At last she’s satisfied and takes her spot at the center of the group.
She motions with her head for Ranna to go ahead.
Click-click-click.
“You’ll give it to me later?” she asks, running her hands over her shiny black hair.
“Of course, Hadhi,” answers Ranna. “You look lovely.”
The woman tugs at her dress and smiles proudly. “It’s a very special day.”
2
Much later that evening I find out how Ranna and I ended up at the same wedding. And that we can speak to each other in Afrikaans, though her g’s and r’s tend to be a little softer because she’s been away from South Africa for so long. It explains why her accent rang a bell in the first place.
Ranna’s friend Hadhi Batenga is the mother of the groom. Hadhi’s son—her firstborn—is marrying a doctor with a practice in Dar es Salaam. Hadhi owns the building where Ranna rents an apartment. She calls Ranna Miss America because Ranna’s South African mother and Israeli stepfather moved to New York years ago, in search of the bright lights and the relative safety the US offered. “And the dollars, of course,” Ranna joked when I asked.
I was invited to the wedding because I wrote an article about Hadhi’s future daughter-in-law and the HIV/AIDS clinic she established for sex workers. It was my first article after arriving in Tanzania, and it appeared on page twenty-eight of the New York Times. I was as proud as if it were my very first story in print. At last my name had appeared in the bible of journalism.
I know I haven’t exactly been working hard since my arrival, yet I wonder why I haven’t run into Ranna before. But it’s good that I met her today, I think—at a wedding.
As the evening progresses, I drink too much and eat too little. I chat with the other, mostly older guests, who complain that the white wedding is too Western and modern, but my eyes keep singling out Ranna’s tall, restless figure.
At the end of dinner and three lengthy speeches, I watch as she dances with Hadhi, Ranna’s hands on the much shorter woman’s shoulders. They keep throwing glances at the bridal couple and laughing.
Ranna told me how happy Hadhi is to see David married at last. Neither Hadhi nor David’s brothers thought he would ever pluck up the courage to pop the question. David has never been in a hurry. Hadhi worked hard to put her oldest through university in the UK, and finally, almost eight years later, he graduated with a master’s degree in economics.
Ranna’s boots step carefully around Hadhi’s elegant black shoes. Around and around in the brown dust. Suddenly she looks up, her eyes even bluer than I remember.
“Take a photo!” she calls, as if she knows my eyes will be on her.
She dances three more steps and turns, putting her arm around Hadhi’s shoulders and drawing the older woman close.
Click goes the Nikon I’ve been holding for her. Click-click.
“Another one, another one!” a voice cries.
It’s Hadhi’s youngest. The boy, clad in David’s old suit, has been struggling all night to keep the too-long sleeves out of his food. There’s a clear family resemblance among the four boys. They’re all tall, slim, and broad-shouldered.
He hurries across to Hadhi and Ranna and stands in front of them, his hands making peace signs. I take another photo. And more, as people keep joining them.
Later, I’ll display the last, happiest picture on my desk. “How to Survive Being a Correspondent in Africa” would be the title of my attempt to describe that near-extinct species to green journalism students.
Fall in love, I would write. With the country. With the people. Maybe even with someone extraordinary.
Never expect it to be like home.
Home will never be the same again.
3
When the sun rises, I’m still awake. I came home at three but couldn’t fall asleep. My thoughts kept returning to Ranna and the wedding.
Perhaps I should go for a run. It always helps clear my mind.
As I’m putting on my running shoes, I remember the Springbok Radio serials my grandmother was addicted to when she was still alive and the romance novels she devoured over vacations.
I’ve never believed in love. Or, as Ouma would say, True Love, with capital letters. It was fine for her, I always thought, because my grandfather died seven years after their wedding, and she never remarried, despite there being no lack of suitors on her doorstep.
I’ve never shared her view of love. If your earliest memory is of your father beating your mother so that she can barely walk, you don’t believe in True Love. In love, maybe, if you’re lucky. Or maybe just in a body, any body, to make the nights shorter and the silence more bearable.
And that’s the problem.
All of a sudden, just because I’ve met a beautiful woman, I’m all set to forget about my father, my mother, and the farm. All I want to remember is an old lady touching my shoulder, telling me that someday everything will become clear to me—even the thing between my mother and father.
She called it love; I call it chaos.
I’m familiar with chaos. From an early age I learned to spot its approach from a distance. It’s what kept me safe. Continues to keep me safe. If I could anticipate my father’s rage, I could make myself scarce before it boiled over. Sometimes I could even defuse the situation.
I pull on a clean T-shirt and tie my apartment keys to my shoelaces, then begin to stretch.
The problem is that when I look at Ranna, all I see is chaos. She hides her emotions, tries to blend in with the people around her, but inside there runs a taut steel wire, as if she’s waiting for something to go wrong.
I wonder what kind of trouble could possibly sneak up on her here in East Africa, but then decide that it isn’t my problem. The only job I have to do is a three-mile run through downtown Dar es Salaam in under twenty-three minutes.
My first appointment for the day is in the city’s central business district. The reception area of Lion Mining is all chrome and glass, as can be expected of a mining company listed on the Canadian stock exchange. The CEO is still in a meeting, which means I must obey one of the first rules of news gathering: wait.
I lean back in the uncomfortable chair and stretch my legs, still feeling the burn from this morning’s run. The vinyl upholstery squeaks as I settle into the noon sun. A secretary, one of two, looks up and makes an irritated sound at the back of her throat. I give her a half-hearted smile. She ignores it, raises her eyebrows, and turns back to her computer.
When my phone rings, she shoots me a venomous glance.
“Derksen.”
“Alex?” It’s Ranna.