Then I go out at night to paint the stars

1. Robben Island

On Saturday morning, I woke up and thought this was the day to go to Robben Island. The wind was up and the sea would be rough, so I called to be sure the boats were running. All the boats had been canceled except the 1 p.m. trip. I hurried to the station, rode into Cape Town, took a cab to the waterfront, and got there just in time. I sat down with strangers. I was seasick. I struck up talking to the guy beside me, a young Australian with plenty of wit and charm and just the dreamiest eyes. He was well versed in the history of the freedom struggle, and I learned a lot from him. His name is Alex. We were instant friends.

We toured the island together. We saw the island primarily through the windows of a bus, with the narration of a cheeky guide standing at the front taking shots at visitors' nationalities. Overall, his presentation was fine - he wove his jokes into a rich description of the international influences on Robben Island, and various countries' roles in the freedom struggle. When we arrived at the prison building in which Nelson Mandela lived during his time on the island, we were finally allowed to get off the bus. We went inside, and our new guide was a former political prisoner who explained what life was like on Robben Island for inmates. We stood outside Mandela's cell. We learned how he used his time in prison (27 years) to educate himself, earn degrees, and teach other inmates. In 1982, Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison, likely because of his political influence and the new generation of black activists that was emerging from the so-called "Mandela University" at Robben Island. Mandela was released from prison in February 1990.

Robben Island in Table Bay (right), the Cape of Good Hope (top), and False Bay (center), as seen from space.

Table Mountain as seen from the Robben Island ferry.

When the clouds flock to the top of the mountain like this, it is known as the "tablecloth."


The lime quarry where Nelson Mandela and other prisoners were subjected to hard labor. African prisoners were not allowed to wear shoes, long pants, or long-sleeved shirts.



Identity cards used to keep track of prisoners. This man was incarcerated for sabotage in 1964, and was scheduled to be released in 1984.

A former political prisoner speaks about life on Robben Island.

Depending on race, prisoners were allowed various limited amounts of food per day.



In this photograph, Nelson Mandela is seen talking to another prisoner in the yard. Both are wearing warm clothes, but this is only because the picture was taken during a visit from the International Red Cross to ensure that there were no human rights violations on Robben Island.

This was Nelson Mandela's cell when he was in solitary confinement.

Walking back to the bus, I spotted two Robben Island penguins.


2. Waterfront

Alex and I decided to go to dinner, so we went back to the waterfront and caught the shuttle to his hotel. The wind was completely crazy that afternoon, and in the background Table Mountain cupped the city in such beautiful hard hands.



3. Camp's Bay

We arrived at the Twelve Apostles Hotel in Camp's Bay. I had heard of Camp's Bay before. It's the part of Cape Town that has an Aston Martin showroom. And a Ferrari dealership. It's the Malibu of this part of South Africa. It is stunningly beautiful in Camp's Bay. The hotel was possibly the nicest I've ever stayed in, and when I showed up with Alex, I was immediately accorded every courtesy and service the staff could offer me. It was vaguely awkward in a way, and it reminded me of when I was married to the Memphis country club scene. I kept thinking of Lulu, and wondering if this was the hotel where she worked.

We had a brilliant time, though. The drinks were lovely, the food was impeccable, and the lively conversation was clever and fun. Alex and I have a number of uncommon things in common. He made relentless fun of my American accent. We talked and talked and talked. He smoked a Cuban cigar. We ate springbok, ostrich, and steak. We sat in the Leopard Lounge. We talked some more. I explained my dissertation, by request. It was met with approval. It got late, so I stayed.

Alex worked and slept, and I had a marathon of staying awake. I listened to the wind. I looked at the ceiling. I worked on the Hebrew block alphabet in my head, and then Hebrew cursive. I counted in prime numbers. I counted backwards in prime numbers. I did not sleep. Around six, I went and drew a bath in the beautiful bathtub and lay there for a long time. I watched the sun rise through the window. From a warm and soapy bath in Camp's Bay, I watched the sun rise over Lion's Head. I watched the wind blow the water up off the bay and into delightful clouds around the base of the mountain. I watched and watched.

Then I got dressed and wandered around the hotel. The reception person greeted me as "Mrs. Alex's Last Name." I took pictures. I watched people. I drank coffee in a taller mug than usual which I earned by speaking to the café person in startling Xhosa. I went to the gift shop. The clerk was clearly studying, so I asked what she was working on. She's a psychology student at the University of Cape Town, and turns out we know a professor in common. We sat around talking in the empty gift shop for an hour. At one point, a hotel guest came in and bought the stupidest "African" wooden doll, paid a fortune to have it shipped to her home, and left. We had a blast making fun of her and the dumb African thing. We exchanged numbers, and we might get together this week. She was pretty great.

Finally Alex woke up, and then because he had misread his itinerary, it was suddenly a race to get packed and out the door to Australia. People came and took his bags. We said our "goodbye-nice-to-meet-yous," and off he went on a shuttle to the airport. I took the big Mercedes shuttle to the waterfront, but on the way I made friends with the driver, learned about his life, talked with him about the classical music on the radio, and asked if he might be willing to take me all the way to the station, which was where I really needed to go. He was happy to. I gave him some money, he dropped me off, and he sped back to Camp's Bay. I stood on the sidewalk and wondered if I was the first person to take the Mercedes shuttle from the Twelve Apostles Hotel to the central train station.

I looked around the familiar place, all bright and quietly bustling on a Sunday morning, and I was at ease. I knew where I was.


Apple martinis and white wine at the Leopard Lounge.

At the hotel restaurant for springbok and filet.



Sunrise over Camp's Bay and Lion's Head as seen from the bathtub.



Views of Camp's Bay from the front of the hotel.

The hotel terrace with Lion's Head in the background.


4. Station

I was at ease, but I was fast becoming inexplicably sad. The Cape Town station is flanked by rows and rows of stalls with little businesses selling clothes, electronics, souvenirs, shoes, etc. It's like any big, open market. Since it was Sunday, not much was happening. I had to walk past ten blocks of these little businesses to get into the station. The shopkeepers sat and watched me. I felt self-conscious, like they knew where I had just come from. I went inside and checked the schedule. The next train in my direction was in one hour. I wandered back outside. I felt increasingly uneasy, like I had sacrificed some part of myself by staying in Camp's Bay, and now that I was back in the station where I ought to be comfortable because I am there every day, I felt wrong somehow.

I saw a man and a woman sitting in chairs in front of an empty stall. The young woman was fiercely beautiful. I went and stood beside them. The looked at me suspiciously. I blurted out: "I am lonely and sad and I have one hour to wait for my train - can I sit with you?" They looked at me more suspiciously, exchanged amused glances with each other, but pulled up a chair for me. We started talking. The man owns a shop on the block, and he is from Senegal. He is very scared for himself and his business due to the recent xenophobic attacks. The girl's name is Noltando. She works for the Senegalese man. They were at the station waiting for a friend to arrive.

Noltando is twenty-six years old. She came to Cape Town from the Eastern Cape in search of work. She has a son - "two years four months," she told me proudly - and she is hoping to save enough money to bring him here. She dreams of being able to go to London one day, and she is trying desperately to save money. She lives in Khayelitsha Site B. In her eyes she was so strong and so hopeful, like she really believed that she could work hard enough to do the things she knows she wants to do.

But the truth is this: Noltando could work her whole life in a shop in the station, and probably never earn enough even to travel to the Eastern Cape to visit her son, much less bring him here or ever travel to London. People like Noltando make 20-30 rand a day. There is no way out for her. There were hundreds of people at the station that morning, tending their little shops, dreaming their own little dreams, and there is no way out for them either. When the day is done, they will go home to their shacks or tiny houses in places like Khayelitsha, and they won't have hot water, and they won't have a good, hot meal, and there is not ever going to be a way out for them, not ever.

I stayed with Noltando, and we talked and talked about what we dream about. We talked about who we are created to be on the earth, and what we are supposed to be doing. We talked about how hard it is to know what the right thing is. Suddenly I had no idea what I was doing in South Africa. And at the same time, I knew more clearly than I've ever known in my life what I am doing on this earth. I am not put on the earth to watch the sun rise from a bathtub in Camp's Bay. Make no mistake, though - the time at the hotel was brilliant and super fun and I wouldn't change it for anything. I would do it again for sure. But at the same time, the hotel drew for me a relief map of South Africa, and called out to me that I also belong in the station, I belong on the train, I belong in all kinds of places where I can tell stories, and listen to stories, and make someone smile and work hard and try to do my small good things.

This is Noltando:





5. Train















When I arrived at the train station in Cape Town, I had 1,100 rand in my red leather wallet, and also a pair of diamond earrings that had earlier become uncomfortable. When I boarded the train, I had neither. It is up to you to decide what happened to them, but I will say this much: nothing bad happened to me at the station that morning. Not one bad thing has happened to me this whole time in South Africa. I have never felt fear, not once, not like what comes to me sometimes in America. It has been only gift after gift after exquisite gift.

The windows of the train were covered with graffiti, so I opened mine and stood in the wind as the familiar landscape passed. I knew the stations. I knew the buildings and the signs and the barbed wire. I knew the ordinary people walking, and I knew Table Mountain from a distance, through a haze of wires and fences and housetops. I was going home. I cried the whole way, and took pictures of all of it. When the ticket taker came to my seat, I looked up at him, and he kept going. At the station, I was home. I walked the streets I knew, and I was home. My heart swelled as I felt in my bag for my keys, and found them, and fit them in the gate and swung it open. There, sitting on the terrace in the sun and calling out to me was Gogo. I was home. I went to her, sat down on the pavement, and laid my head in her lap. She ran her hands over my hair, and she said to me, “Ah, girl. I am so glad you are home.”


6. Sky

Tonight late I lay on the grass in the wind and looked up at the dark blue sky and the moon and all the stars. I saw the False Cross, and the Southern Cross. And thanks to what the astronomer taught me about the sky on a mountaintop in New Zealand, and thanks to what Noltando taught me about myself in a train station in Cape Town, it was so easy to tell them apart.

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And it does me good to do difficult things. That does not prevent me from having a terrible need of – shall I say the word? – of religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars, and I am always dreaming of a picture like this . . .

Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, 28 September 1888