An Act of Defiance

An Act of Defiance

Gabrielle Busisiwa Langa steps out from the darkness into the light. Her eyes are at first blind but then they see. Flashes of images stun her in the dizzying sunlight until her eyes stop blinking and settle. There, bearing down on her, a swollen, pitted face, glistening with sweat, a grubby Youth League T-shirt straining at the belly, thick fingers plucking at patches of wetness. A panga, its blade rusting, raised, slices through the air, once, twice. A movement on her left, metal scraping the ground, stones flying, a hoe swinging from one thin hand to the other and then back again. She looks up to see a khaki, military-style shirt, unbuttoned, exposing ribs, cheap sunglasses lying askew on a gaunt face, the lenses pitch-black. This one she knows. ‘Hure,’ she hears, the voice low and thick. Her eyes swoop to the right – a figure bent over, spitting. She registers the torn, dark green string vest hanging off the sloping shoulders, the tree branch sweeping the ground, the shaven head raised, spit dribbling, the eyes, bloodshot, bulging from their sockets, fixed on her. His lips form the word again. Huuureh. Whore.

There are others around Ben, who has been knocked to the ground. All she catches are snatches of him, fingers splayed, a foot shuffling in the dirt; a glint of metal in his palm, the keys to the red car.

‘I’m – I’m – a diplomat. You’re making—’

The words straggling out, as if his mouth might be full of blood, loose teeth – the flurry of blows falling on him in the moments before she stepped out.

‘I – I – have my papers—’

He coughs, hawks up phlegm.

‘Here, wait a—’

‘Shut up!’

The men move so that in the shift of spaces and light she sees him there struggling to get up, his hand bloodied, reaching out, red seeping through the white and green of his shirt. It is the same shirt he wore

the first time she set eyes on him, over a month ago now, when he’d strode breezily into that vet’s surgery. ‘Hello folks,’ he’d said, his voice sonorous and foreign,‘I’m Ben, it’s good to be here.’

‘Idiot! Idiot! We know you are American. We are not interested.’

‘Gabrielle . . . Ga— are you—?’

Shrill laughter slashes through his words. Her name is a cacophony of sounds in their mouths, mimicking his accent, taunting him. In an instant, her fear gives way to something else. She lifts her gaze, faces them, sets her eyes on the pitch-black lenses.

‘Please, let us go. We—’

The slap sears through her cheek – the burning, stinging imprint of it is alive on her skin. It is so hard she staggers backwards. Stars zing around her as if she is a cartoon character.

‘Hure.’ A shove on her back fells her.

‘Listen to me.’ Ben, trying again to get through to them. ‘The embassy—’

‘Shut up!’

A boot-clad foot rising over him; shouts, dull thuds, slaps, a crack.