Arja Salfranca Born in Spain in 1971 to a South African mother and a Spanish father, Arja Salafranca came to SA at age five where she lived until recently (she has relocated to London). She holds a BA degree from Wits University and has won several awards for her work including the 1999 Sanlam Award for a poetry collection, “A Life Stripped of Illusions”, the 1999 Sanlam Award for a short story, “Couple on the Beach”, and third prize in the Herstoria fiction award for “The Love Accountant”. She has been published in local journals, anthologies and internet sites and a second collection of poetry, “The Fire in Which we Burn”, was published by Dye Hard Press in 2000. By profession a journalist, she has worked on community newspapers, as a feature writer on a home focused magazine, and was a sub-editor at the Saturday Star in Johannesburg for four years.

Ten minutes to hate

Arja Salfranca

I am sitting in a darkened theatre beside the man I hope will love me one day. We are listening to the words of an American writer as interpreted by a South African actress in a pseudo American accent.
She is talking of the life of a weasel, whose only battle is for survival. ‘I would like to be a weasel,’ she says, ‘with my mind blank and full of nothing. I would like to know what that feels like, no present or past, the minute forgotten as soon as it is past.’
In the interval we talk. We drink sweet soft drinks on this cold winter night. I swirl the ice around in mine, crunching ice against my teeth. Thomas, the man I am with, swallows his lukewarm soda water and I watch him. We are with another couple, Jane and Allen. Jane I know from a course I did years ago, and Allen is a man she met at an exhibition a few weeks ago.
We go into the second half. We think about where we will go after the show, we think about tomorrow, Saturday morning, getting up late.
The second half stuns us. It is all about an eclipse somewhere over central America. The narrator makes the scene come alive, we see the blue shrouded mountains, the blackness covering the land, the sudden brightness. But, it is much more than an eclipse. It is soaring beauty, it is fantastical, it’s another world. We sit still for close on an hour, wrapped up in the drama.
There is tremendous applause at the end. We clap and clap, the actress bows, we give her a standing ovation, and she smiles again.
There is a bang. A volley of gunshots. The audience screams. The actress stops smiling, the lights in the auditorium are still off and there is only a single spotlight on her. There’s a blast of cold air as a group of gunmen burst in. I hold on tight to Thomas. There are screams. The leader of the group raises his revolver, fires shots at the ceiling.
‘Shut-up!’ he yells, ‘everybody shut-up. Shut-up or we’ll shoot.’ Now we are silent. I grip Thomas’s arm, making bruises for the following morning.
The gunmen have balaclavas over their heads so that we cannot see their faces. There are six or eight of them. The leader climbs onto the stage, another grips the actresses’ arm and holds her. We see her frightened face.
‘We want whatever you have,’ the gunman yells. ‘We want money, jewellery. Do it or we’ll shoot.’
Like children collecting candy, the gunmen make their way up and down the aisles, women thrust their bags at them, the gunmen throw out the debris, ripping into their purses. The men proffer wallets. No one refuses.
I look at Thomas, his eyes are as scared and wide as mine. I am wearing my grandmother’s gold watch.
I show it to him. ‘What shall I do?’ I whisper.
‘Give it!’ he hisses back. I want to take it off, hide it, but one of the gunman is there already. Thomas gives him his wallet. I show him my bag. He rifles through both, taking out the crisp clean notes withdrawn from the ATM for the weekend ahead. The man’s brown eyes bore into mine from behind the balaclava. The rifle hangs at his side, swinging ominously. He leans against my face till I am looking into the dark eyes only inches away from mine. He is so close I can smell his lightly rotten breath.
‘Do you want to die?’
I shake my head nervously.
‘Then why you don’t give me that gold watch?’
I look at it. Drawn back up to his full height, he looks at it.
Thomas nudges me.
‘It was my grandmother’s,’ I say.
‘Your grandmother?’ He turns to the audience who are watching this spectacle of my refusal to give up parts of memory.
He brings his face up to mine again. I smell that breath, a remnant of onions eaten sometime tonight. Am I mad? I’m taking on a gunman over a watch that belonged to a grandmother I hardly cared for. Do I want to die?
Eyes piercing into mine, the man roars, ‘My grandmother died working for you! My grandmother died because she was always working. My grandmother had no gold watch!’ I jump with the force of his anger. He leans closer. I feel his hot breath against my ear, and he yells, ‘Do you want to die tonight?’
I take the watch off, hands shaking. I do not want to die. I want to wake up tomorrow morning, this whole thing distant, forgotten. I give him the watch. My life for my dead grandmother’s expensive gold watch.
He takes it, sneering through the black-knitted balaclava. Then he presses his fingers into the veins in my arms. I wince, knowing I mustn’t say anything to provoke him further. As it is I made a mistake in drawing attention to myself. In situations like these, we know to comply, shut-up and comply. What was I doing?
The robbery continues. They get away with jewellery and money.
It’s over in ten minutes, and then they are gone, leaving a set of bullet holes in the ceiling, as a reminder, as a warning of hate. Security guards are swarming all over the place, people are sobbing or getting up in outrage, yelling, ‘Shit!’ and ‘Jesus’ and ‘Fucking bastards!’ No one has been hurt.
The police have been called.
We rush out into the foyer. The bar is deserted, the bartenders were locked up in a cupboard so that they could not get help. A tiny glass door leads off into the street and they show us where the robbers came in.
We mill around, we shake our heads in shock, pointing to that small glass door, commenting that security should be tighter. The manager gives us drinks to calm our nerves. A woman stands vomiting in the corner, a man holds her.
We are asked to stay, to give our statements to the police.
‘Why would they target theatre-goers?’ a woman asks. No one answers. Then, ‘We’re easy targets,’ a big fat man laughs in reply. ‘Sitting ducks, watching a play.’
‘It’s disgusting,’ she emphasises.
Thomas is in the toilet. I sit on one of the couches, holding a mug of lukewarm coffee. Jane holds onto Allen. I feel alone and cold, shivering in a skimpy dress. My coat is dangling over a seat in the theatre. I sit immobilised.
The police are late. It’s nearly a half an hour since the incident. A few officers arrive. They take our statements, noting very precisely and deliberately what was taken, slowly writing down the details on their official forms. The one assigned to Thomas and I is so young, he looks barely out of high school.
‘At least no one was hurt,’ we reassure ourselves.
The fat man cracks a joke, normality is returning. ‘Only in South Africa are you considered lucky to get away with your life when you get robbed!’ Some of us laugh.
It’s over an hour after the incident. The police want us to stay put, dealing with us all. A few reporters arrive, thrust out from a quiet night shift. They take our stories, this will be big. As part of the crime wave cresting the country, a group of theatre-goers is robbed. Is there no place sacred, no place safe in this land of ours? I can see the headlines already.
Security will be beefed up, the manager assures us.
We talk in groups, we hover, we pace. How could this have happened? The country’s gone mad.
‘I’m convinced it’s never going to stop,’ Jane says.
Allen shakes his head, ‘It has to. I grew up in Zambia. After independence the crime was so bad it was just like here, we saw no future, but it did stop, eventually. It took about ten, fifteen years, but eventually it did stop.’
‘I’m not prepared to wait that long,’ Jane says. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m getting out. Nowhere is safe. It’s not worth it. Why should I have to face this every day just because the country’s sorting itself out, and the government doesn’t give a damn. No way. I’m getting out of here. First thing Monday morning, I’m phoning the Canadian Embassy, the Australian Embassy, whatever. I’m going.’
No one tries to argue her out of it. We all have our escape routes in our heads. Foreign passports. There is nothing left to say.
‘Crime’s getting worse all over the world,’ Allen shrugs his weak argument. ‘When I was in London a few months ago, I could see it wasn’t as safe as five, ten years ago. You’re not safe anywhere.’
‘But it’s still not like here!’ exclaims Jane.
‘Perhaps it’s all part of the turning of the century thing,’ I add. ‘Everybody’s going mad all over the world.’
But they simply look at me. Thomas looks far away. He does not hold me as Allen holds Jane.
It is near twelve before we are allowed to leave. Thomas drops me off at my flat. I ask him if he’ll stay the night. But he has to get up early, he has to train. He is running a marathon in a month. ‘I don’t want to be alone tonight,’ I plead.
‘I’m sorry, Greta,’ he says. ‘Phone me if you need to, OK? That marathon’s important to me. Lock your doors. You’ll be fine. You’ve got burglar bars, the best alarm system.’
‘I’m not afraid of anyone getting in,’ I say, ‘I’m afraid of my memories. I just need you here tonight.’
‘And then it’ll be tomorrow night and the next. You’ve got to get over this by yourself. You can’t use me as a crutch.’
‘I had a gunman breathing down my throat tonight, and you tell me I need you as a crutch!’
He leaves in his smart red car. I hear it roar down the quiet road. I go to bed. I am surprisingly calm. I will sleep. It’s how I know it’s finally over: when the man I thought would love me leaves in the middle of the night so that he can train for some marathon.
Thomas does not like to argue, hates ugly confrontations, and even told me so one night. I should have known. I could keep him if I could only keep quiet, made do with this little bit I get from him. But I can’t. I won’t.

There is a mention of the incident in the Saturday papers, some quotes. This story, like so many others, all so similiar, will die soon.
I spend the day by myself. On Sunday my parents call from the coast where they are holidaying. They haven’t heard about the incident. I tell them and they are shocked, and constantly ask me if I am all right.
In the afternoon my married sister comes over with cake. But I’m fine. I tell her that much, and she asks why I didn’t call, why she had to hear it from our parents.
‘I suppose I thought Thomas would be around,’ I tell her. I haven’t heard from him all weekend.
‘Are you still hoping against hope?’
‘Still am!’ I smile.
She doesn’t say anything to this.
She leaves, wanting me to spend the night at her house. But I am safe here. I am in this cocoon where I do not feel, or think about what has happened.

I am sent for counselling to deal with my trauma.
But as I tell the psychologist, I feel fine. I do not have visions of the event. I am not at all affected. I carry on living my life normally I refuse to be scared and overly cautious.
The psychologist leans forward when I tell her this, concern on her face. ‘Greta,’ she says, her hands a pyramid beneath her chin, ‘you must deal with the trauma of the event. You were robbed. And this is not an isolated incident, it is happening all around you.’
I let the advice hang in the air. She goes on, ‘You must deal with the fact that you looked death in the face.’
I want to laugh at her melodrama.
The words fly over me, because suddenly I no longer care. The sunlight streams in, prickling my eyes. I cry, and the floodgates open. I can hardly talk, hardly explain to her that I am crying because I haven’t seen Thomas since the incident, that we have only talked perfunctorily on the phone. He does not want to see me, he needs to sort through his confusion.
But I am sobbing so much the psychologist does not know this. I cannot get the words out. The incident, the robbery, seem unimportant, I am invincible against everything but for the hurt this man has caused.
But the psychologist does not know this, thinking I am crying about what has happened to me at the theatre. I cannot sob out the awful cliché that it is because I have a sour relationship with a man who has never loved me.

I can see and smell the violence when I drive around the city.
The fear is ever present. It is there in the furtive glances of scared people in their cars, the revving of engines at traffic lights when they are red, and the anger of those who weren’t near enough to run the orange, and sit waiting at a red robot, fingers drumming on the wheel, eyes scanning the rear-view mirrors, checking that no one is about to smash a brick through the window or point a gun at them.
The fear lurks behind the high walls and the electrified gates and the panic buttons that we wear when we go outside to hang washing. It is present in conversation at dinner parties, and it is there on the radio news every morning that you wake up.
A father shot dead in his driveway by hijackers while his ten-year-old watches him bleed to death. A woman is tortured in her home because she has no money. The robbers brand her for life by pressing a hot iron against her face. A temporary remembrance wall is painted over with faces and names of the victims of crime, I drive past it daily before it is made white again.
You cannot turn in this city without wondering when it will be your turn?
Well, it was my turn.
You cope. You go to a braai and sit listening when a woman describes her hijacking. You stare, absorbed by her story, although it is nothing new.
You are fascinated by what you perceive as her bravery, her courage, her decision to remain in the country. You do not realise that that is her only way of coping, that there is no other alternative for her.
As there is no alternative for me. There is no alternative to the hope and the panic except to face up to it, stare at it in the face, stare it down, as brutal thugs breathe on you, wanting whatever it is you’ve got. If you let it stalk you, it will hunt you down.
You can’t fear dying when the next bullet might be for you.

boontoe

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