Forgive Me. Amanda Eyre Ward

there will come a day when shocking people will grow tiresome. You’ll want to teach, to change things.”

      “I’m hardly a tabloid reporter.”

      “Oh?” said Padget. He ran a hand over thinning hair. “I don’t have a daughter,” he said. “Indulge me my fatherly tendencies.”

      Nadine sighed, but revolved her hand to say go on.

      “What you do is good. You rush in, detail the facts. You’re courageous. But to get better, to become a great reporter, you’re going to have to learn what it is you’re doing. You need to take it apart and put it back together with thought. You need to go to graduate school, and then stay in one place for a while. Your work needs perspective. Yes, horrible things are happening, and thank you for telling us. But why, Nadine? And what can we do about it?”

      Nadine ordered another drink. She was quiet.

      “For example,” said Padget. “When Duvalier flees the country, which he will, what’s going to happen? He’s a vicious asshole, yes. But who’s going to replace him? And what will become of Haiti then?”

      Nadine looked up. “Whatever comes,” she said, “it will be better than Baby Doc.”

      “Are you sure?” said Padget. “In ‘57, Baby Doc was the great hope.”

      Nadine sipped her drink. “I never…,” she said. “I guess I hadn’t thought.”

      “Thanks for listening,” said Padget. “Just a few words from an old man.”

      “You’re not old,” said Nadine.

      “Got to pass the torch sometime.”

      In the morning, Nadine called the NYU School of Journalism, Padget’s alma mater.

      Nadine studied writing, photography, and history at NYU. One of her professors was South African, and she urged Nadine to head to Johannesburg or Cape Town for the summer. “I’d give my arm to go back,” said Renata. “The Young Lions are changing the world. They’re braver–and dumber–than we were.”

      Nelson Mandela’s struggle for a nonviolent takeover had come to nothing, Renata explained. Mandela was in prison, and many of his ardent supporters–including Renata, a white journalist who had questioned the mysterious deaths of jailed activists–were dead, missing, or exiled. Black youth, born and bred in the townships that surrounded South Africa’s cities, stripped of rights, material pleasures, and education, had grown up angry. “Their parents were too scared to fight. They had jobs, and they didn’t want to lose them,” said Renata. “But these kids? They’ve got nothing. They don’t have one thing to lose.”

      They called themselves the Young Lions, and they were coming of age, embracing violence as a way to take back their county, which had been ruled by whites since 1948. South Africa was going to ignite, Renata said, “like a fucking bomb.

      “For God’s sake, they just beat that American boy to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

      “I don’t get it,” said Nadine. “I mean, why did they kill him? How could that help anything?”

      “It’s the mind-set,” said Renata. “These kids feel like violence is the only way. Maybe they’re right. If they kill people, blow things up, the government will have to take notice. Everyone will stop ignoring apartheid. Jason Irving’s face was on the front page of every paper in the world.”

      “But Jason Irving was American. He was teaching in the townships–”

      “This isn’t subtle, Nadine. It’s not about thinking actions through. If you see a white person, kill them. If you announce a strike–nobody go to work for the white man–and some people take the train to work, blow up the train. It’s cut-and-dried, desperate. The kids who killed Jason, they had just left a rally. They’d been told to kill. One settler equals one bullet. A simple equation, in a country where there’s no room for nuance.”

      “It’s insanity,” said Nadine.

      “It’s news” said Renata.

      Nadine went to Boston to meet with Eugenia, who was skeptical. “First you ditch me for graduate school,” she said disdainfully, lighting a cigarette in her cluttered office, “and now South Africa? I don’t know, babe. What about Sudan? Starving orphans, Nadine. Hundreds of ‘em. We’ve got Bill there, but you’re better at the misery and death stuff. Hell, Nadine, orphans are your specialty.”

      “But I know I could do great work in South Africa,” said Nadine. “My professor, Renata Jorgensen, she fled the country with her notes on Steve Biko–”

      “Spare me,” said Eugenia. She touched her springy red curls and then stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ll advance you the plane ticket and one month’s rent. Find something cheap.”

      “Thanks, Eugenia. I promise, you’ll be glad.”

      “Yeah, yeah,” said Eugenia. “Let’s go pig out on pizza.”

      From the moment she stepped outside the airport, Nadine was entranced by Cape Town. She loved the way the city wrapped itself around majestic Table Mountain, embracing the peak on three sides and spilling out to Table Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Sundrenched vineyards climbed the eastern slopes of the mountain, their picturesque wineries wreathed in oak and pine trees.

      Nadine took a rare day to herself, heading south of the city, to the Cape of Good Hope, and hiking out to its craggy point. High above two oceans, she breathed deeply. In the nature reserve, she saw a zebra and ostriches. Small but fierce baboons grabbed at the remains of her picnic lunch.

      For the first time on assignment, Nadine looked just like the locals around her: black Cape Townians were not allowed in white areas after dark, and Nadine blended in with the white South Africans as she wandered among the Dutch and British colonial buildings, the cathedrals, shops, and the old slave market, now a shady square lined with upscale restaurants. Only Nadine’s American accent gave her away.

      Nadine studied guidebooks and maps of the city. A blank section on most maps between the peninsula and the African mainland was designated CAPE FLATS. Nadine knew this bleak place plagued by wind-driven sand was where the city’s millions of non-whites lived. She visited District Six, once a thriving mixed-race neighborhood in one of the most beautiful parts of Cape Town. It had been “bleached” by the government, its buildings bulldozed, its residents sent to the Flats. Now it was a wasteland of rubble, plans for its revival mired in red tape.

      Nadine stayed at a hostel on raucous Long Street for a week, examining the classified ads in the white edition of the Cape Argus. She’d heard there was a “native edition,” but no one was selling it on Long Street. Finally, Nadine called the number on an index card tacked to the hallway bulletin board: OBS HOUSE NEEDS ROOMIE. 17 NUTTHALL ROAD. CALL MAXIM AT 448-6363.

      She spoke with Maxim, who was short on the phone. “Come see the place,” he said in a strong Afrikaans accent. “Then we can talk,” he said.

      Nadine tried to take a bus to Observatory, but all the buses were labeled NON-WHITES ONLY, and the drivers wouldn’t let her on. Finally, she took a taxi to 17 Nutthall Road, a ramshackle house with a sagging front porch. Nadine climbed the steps and pressed the buzzer. Nothing happened. She wiped perspiration from her brow: the southeast wind the guidebooks called “the Cape Doctor” was hot as hell and she was tired. She carried a bulging backpack. Finally, she banged on the door, and it opened. A guy her age stood in front of her, wearing only a towel.

      “Uh,” said Nadine, “are you Maxim?”

      “No, darling,” said the guy. “I’m George.” He was lean and muscled, his shoulder-length dark hair combed back from his boyish face. Even his accent was charming–almost British, but not quite. Nadine would later learn that he was American: the accent was complete artifice. He held a cigarette. He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed one leg over the other. He watched Nadine, a smirk playing across his face.

      “Can