The taxi cab with Siyanda and Mandisa inside stops outside the Cape Town bus terminal. Siyanda will take a bus to Durban; Mandisa will carry on to Cape Town International Airport for her flight to Johannesburg.
“This is it,” says Siyanda.
“I’m going to miss you,” says Mandisa as they hug.
“Send my regards to your Mom,” says Siyanda. “It would have been nice to finally meet her.”
“Yes, babe. But what can you do? Your father needs you. Your bus ticket is on the side of the suitcase. Are you sure you will be fine for cash?”
“Yes, I’ll manage. Let me double check if this is the bus to Durban.”
As Siyanda walks off to check the bus, Mandisa slips ten one hundred rand notes into the envelope with the bus ticket.
While Siyanda watches the cab drive away, Mandisa turns back to look at him. They both smile, waving to each other until the taxi cab disappears. Siyanda smiles again when he boards the bus and finds his surprise – ten one hundred rand notes. A simple ‘I love you’ is written on the envelope. Sometimes in life you are given what you need, he thinks.
It takes twenty-four hours for the bus to reach Durban. Siyanda has money but he doesn’t spend it carelessly. He doesn’t buy food at the many stops, but survives on the biscuits and coffee offered on the bus. A person who always had less, he has trained his body to withstand hunger. He sleeps for most of the journey. In Durban he takes another bus that drops him off some twenty-odd kilometers from the farm in Umbumbulu.
Siyanda does the last part of the journey on foot. Dread hits the dead centre of his chest as he gets to the top of a hill and sees sugar cane fields rustling in the wind.
***
Dr Menzi Vezi is with his son, Halalisa, in his Porsche Cayenne. He shakes his head, looking at his son. The main aim of this journey is to be by his friend’s side as he buries his father, but he also wants to show his own son another side of life. But Halalisa has barely looked up from his tablet since they left Johannesburg. His earphones have not once been off his ears.
He taps Halalisa’s shoulder when they reach the gravel road.
“Enough of that now, Halalisa,” says Menzi. “You can’t live your life looking down at your tablet.”
“Sure, Dad,” Halalisa nods.
Halalisa grows pensive at the scenes outside the window: women carrying bales of firewood and large containers of water on their heads, the vast land, homesteads far apart.
“Where are they going? Where do they buy food?” says Halalisa.
“This is the life other people live. It’s not the same life for everyone,” says Menzi. He squints at the navigation system on the dashboard. “We are losing GPS.”
Menzi tries to phone Matt, but the signal is weak and the call doesn’t go through. Then, in the middle of the road, they see a man stylishly dressed in skinny jeans and a hoody. He is dragging a suitcase behind him.
“Ask this guy, Dad,” says Halalisa.
Menzi stops the car next to Siyanda.
“We are looking for the Stevens’ farm. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s not very far from here,” says Siyanda. “Just a few kilometres further up. I’m also going there.”
“Hop in!”
They drive into the farm. Two distinct groups are in conversation. Farmworkers are on one side, the Stevens family is on the other side.
“I wonder what is going on here,” says Menzi.
***
Tell us: What kind of confrontation do you think could be happening here? What are the tensions in this situation?