Page 58 of The Secret
Just when I’ve tamped down my desperate need to go to South Africa, someone puts an offer like that on the table. I have to go, if only to return all Brian’s kindness. I could head down there and make some contacts, meet some key aid people.You’re not kidding anyone, Liss.Electricity hums through me. Goddammit, hope is what finished me last time. And South Africa is ahugecountry. And why would he be there now? The whole search for him in Zimbabwe was fruitless.Maybe you could hire another private investigator.I groan and put my head in my hands.
James blinks at me. “You don’t have to go,” his concerned eyes scan my face as I lift my head to rest on my hands, staring out the window.
“It’s fine. I’m happy to help.” I turn to meet his gaze and give him a weak smile I pray he won’t see through.
28
LISS
Friday, February 25, 2022
After a few morning meetings, I wedge myself into the back of a dilapidated colonial-style meeting hall behind rows of wooden chairs full of people. Hundreds more people stand against the side walls: Everyone who’s trying to get goods out of South Africa is here. Security guards are talking to more people who are trying to cram inside. We desperately need to sort out how to get supplies into Kiwanja, but there’s so much reluctance to deal with the DRC given the armed groups and attacks on transportation. Nobody is interested: To them we are another troubled, war-torn region, but it’s local people who are starving.
The only thing in our favor is that we’re an aid agency, and we have money. Our distributor here has already shaken his head at me and said repeatedly, “Not possible,” but if I can find the right people and grease a few palms, things will happen.The hustler, that’s me.I’m sure I can persuade someone to transport our stuff. Brian’s too.
My short pants and T-shirt stick to my skin, and I glance up at the ineffectual wooden blades slowly rotating over the central part of the hall. The top sides are all coated in dust like they belong to another age, before technology moved from fans to something better. A smile curls my lips: Just the sight of this overcrowded place and the creaky old fan makes my heart ache for these chaotic countries with their lovely hospitable people and vital problems.I’m so pleased to be back.I survey the room again. It’s unlikely I’ll spot a familiar face, but you never know, and it might be helpful.
Several people are making their way toward the makeshift platform at the front which holds a long table at which six or seven people are seated. As I follow the line of people down the aisle, my gaze lands on a white guy at the end of the table with long hair and a beard. He looks familiar. With broad shoulders in a crumpled khaki shirt, he’s just like …don’t be stupid, Liss …the number of times I’ve seen guys I thought were him ... I roll my eyes at myself.
The government official chairing the meeting stands up, bangs the gavel down and the talking begins. And boy, does it go on. There’s a lot of speeches about supply routes, ongoing negotiations with the strikers … Gah. I should be taking notes. Then the sandy-haired guy stands up and the chair introduces him as a member of the farming community, and my gaze wanders over him again. Something about the movement of his hands has me riveted. He clears his throat to speak and the way he does it …Don’t be an idiot, Liss… I wish Brian hadn’t told me he thought Dan had lived in South Africa: I’m going to be seeing him everywhere.
But then he starts speaking and my heart stops.
Oh my God.
It’s Dan.
That deep rumble …
Surely … surely…
No.
No. It can’t be.
I used to listen out for his voice, hear it through mud and bamboo walls. And he’s just sitting here, on this platform? Like he popped up from nowhere.Holy shit.But he’s smaller, shrunken somehow, not the smiling person I knew.Is it really him? That hair and the beard?
He carries on talking, and I focus down on my hands only to find they’re shaking, a buzz of electricity flooding through my body. The hall starts to fade in and out. I’m fucking hot and getting hotter.I need to sit down. I raise my water bottle to my lips, banging it against my teeth. Deep breath, concentrate on breathing. In out, in out.Holy shit.His face is lined, hidden behind all the facial hair.I thought he was dead. I want to wave. I don’t want to wave. What happened to his short soft curls? My eyes skip to the long roping arms, so much thinner than I remember. His face creases into a frown as he sucks on his lip, like the whole world is weighing him down.
Oh.
My.
God.
He’s saying something about the harvest, about workers. He shifts in his chair, and it’s so achingly familiar. I have a hundred images of him sitting on the veranda, taking his shirt off on a build, shifting that exact same way. I groan internally.
I glance at the guys next to me and lick my lips. He’s not going to see me in a crowd as big as this. Is that a good or a bad thing? But maybe as one of the few women here, I’m standing out like a sore thumb. The thread of what’s being said washes over my head. Fucking hell, he cut me out of his life.Am I going to talk to him?He moves to cross his legs. What could I say? So many things I’ve wanted answers to for so long, like you’re not dead and where the fuck did you go? And Jesus, why, why, why? I shake my head. I have to talk to him. After everything, how could I let this go by?
The back-and-forth discussion from the floor is interminable, but eventually the chair calls it closed with promises of action and a disgruntled mumbling rises into the air with a couple shouts of “Shame!” echoing off the walls. People surge toward the raised platform to speak to the government’s transportation boss, to talk toDan. But I don’t move. I’ll catch him when the crowd clears.Is this his job?
As he leans down to chat to a man who taps his arm, Dan’s head lifts, eyes scanning the room absent-mindedly, running over me and carrying on. Then he stops and his eyes swing back, lips parting and a hundred emotions skitter over his face. He bites his lip and focuses back on the guy who’s talking to him, blinking rapidly before looking to the side, clearly not concentrating on what’s being said. His eyes meet mine, and he stares.
He’s alive.
Alive.
Alive.
