And of course I couldn’t tell anybody all this. Not my mother at home, not my sister-in-law - definitely not her - not even my husband at Diepkloof who came once a month. So every night at home I would go to bed and be worrying about Rose and her boy. And every morning I would see Rose at the pile of laundry, and no sooner were we safe in one of the rooms, cleaning, and she would start up again about Lusaka, but whispering, so whispering. How frightened we were.
But Rose got herself calmed down soon after that. She was tough, you know. She told me she was going to wait, because of course he would come back, and what he said would come true. There would be a new government, and new laws. Then everything would be better, because of what they were doing in Lusaka. He was a clever boy, of course. He wouldn’t do something foolish. He could see there was no use going to school in Soweto – it would come to nothing. It never came to anything, going to school in Soweto. The schools in Soweto were rubbish in any case, that’s what he told Rose.
So Rose was a bit better. But another thing her boy had told her was, he would write to her, when he could. This turned out to be a big mistake, to tell her that. Because after about two months of him being away, she started on about the letter. How come she didn’t have a letter yet.
She told me that one day a letter would come to her mailbox. Yes Rose, I told her, yes, he said he would send a letter. Not the brown envelope with the black writing, you know, addressed to “The Occupant”, from the City of Johannesburg, Municipal Services, that came every month reminding her to pay her rent. No, a real letter, she said, with her name written on it. And in a careful, rounded print. That’s what she said. Even I imagined the letter then. A bit grimy, the letter would be, because it would have come from very far away. It would have a stamp on it we had had never seen. Maybe the stamp would have colours on it, with a picture of another place, far away. There would be no return address on the back. Rose would sit down with the letter, hold it in her hands. And I imagined that, too.
And many times, when we were cleaning the rooms, Rose told me about the long, long journey that letter would travel to reach her. She described the journey of the letter, and I listened. The letter would be folded carefully by the hands of her son, she said. Hands rough, not smooth like a schoolboy’s hands, any more. The letter, Rose said, would pass from his hands to another hand, and to another. It would go into a cardboard box, and then into a wooden box. It would travel on a lorry that hurtled along a road across a wide, grassy plain, Rose said. It would come to an African city, filled with people, many people. It would travel to an airport. And then, if the letter had not fallen out of the cardboard box, or the wooden box, or the lorry, and if it had not fallen from one of the pairs of hands that had passed it here, and passed it there, then an airplane would carry the letter in its cargo, and surely a letter cannot fall out of an airplane, and into the blank, blue sky?
And Rose said that the airplane would fly south, south, almost as far south as airplanes fly. And she trusted that in Johannesburg, where it would arrive, they take care of letters that have come from far away, and watch that they don’t fall out of boxes and crates and bags and people’s hands, and Rose said she knew the Johannesburg Central Post Office because she saw it on her way to work every morning, and it was a building that was made of bricks not prefab and it looked very very solid and it looked like it could take good care of letters and especially letters from very very far away. And I knew that post office because I saw it every morning also, so I knew just what Rose was meaning, too.
And one day – Rose said – the mailman whose area was Orlando West would deliver the letter into the mailbox of house number 1665. Rose’s mailbox. Rose’s house. And I was imagining that, too.
But many months went by, and no letter came. We carried on with our work, day after day, at the hotel. One day I told Rose something. Maybe we were mistaken. Maybe – I said - her mailbox is not the right place for a letter to be delivered from the Resistance. Maybe the letter must come a different way. A secret way. Maybe it must be smuggled in, by people who cross borders against the law, and cross out again, in the night. Maybe such a letter must be delivered by a person Rose can never meet, and never see. Maybe – I told her - she would find such a letter pushed under her door, one morning when she set out for work. Who knows? That’s what I said to Rose.
But it was a terrible mistake to tell Rose this. Because then Rose became very anxious about sounds outside her house at night. That’s what she told me. She was certain that a person from the Resistance was waiting always in the shadows to deliver a letter to her. And I became very nervous too, even in my own house at night. Because I started to think that the person from the Resistance was waiting to communicate with me, too. To help Rose. Because I was Rose’s friend. And then I couldn’t sleep at night at all, for many months.
And at night, when I was lying in my bed, I would imagine this letter that did not come. I imagined that however this letter would come, Rose would open the letter, as she sat at her table. She would flatten, carefully, the creases. And she would read. I am well, mother, I am well. We will succeed, mother, we will succeed in our struggle. Have faith and be patient, mother. Be patient. That’s what I used to imagine, when I lay in my bed at night.
But Rose told me one day that she was thinking something else. Something much worse by far. Maybe no letter would come. No letter ever. Instead – she said – there would be a knock on her door one night, as she sat at her table at home. A young man – a comrade, he would call himself – would stand in her doorway. He would have a heavy step, this young man, and a heavier heart. He would deliver news. News that no mother can bear.
Rose left her job soon after she told me that. She couldn’t work any more. She couldn’t concentrate, she did everything wrong, and then she got in trouble because she forgot all the towels for the rooms one day. She wanted to be at home to wait for the letter, she told me. She must wait at home. That’s what she told me. I got a new partner at the hotel. I didn’t enjoy it so much, ever again, working in that hotel, and one day the next year I got another job altogether.
I went to visit Rose once after that, at her house in Orlando. But her sister was looking after her that time, even paying her rent, and cooking for her, otherwise Rose wouldn’t eat. That’s what her sister told me. She told me Rose stays in the house all day, and waits for her boy. She told me Rose is waiting for a letter still. Now Rose says the letter will come from Dar es Salaam. All the way from Dar, that’s what they call it. That’s where she heard some of those boys are now. And if a letter does not come from Dar es Salaam, then a young man – a comrade – will come to Rose’s door. And Rose must be home to meet this young man. That’s what Rose told me.
And while I was sitting in a chair with my tea, in Rose’s house, Rose told me she travels every day across a wide, grassy plain in a lorry that hurtles, to a bustling city. It’s called Lusaka, Rose told me. And then she flies in an airplane through the blue, blue sky, where it’s so beautiful, she said. She flies like a bird, south, south, as far south as airplanes fly. Because she is a letter, she told me, that must, must be delivered to a mailbox in Orlando West, in the Republic of South Africa. This mailbox, which is number 1665, Rose told me, stands in a very, very dark place that is far away from all help. And help is needed, Rose told me. Help is needed. That’s what Rose told me that day.
December 15, 2008
Goose Lane Editions Launches New Online Media Resources
December 15, 2008
New From Gaspereau Press
