You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town by Zoë Wicomb Page B

whistle for the barely attractive. Then there is the business of who is whistling at you, and since you cannot possibly look, since you drop your eyes demurely or stare coldly ahead, and while you shiver deliciously to the vibrations of the whistle there can be a nagging discomfort, an inexplicable lump that settles like a cork in the trachea. Should it be some awful country boy with faltering English and a feathered hat . . . but such a contingency is covered by the supportive group whistle. You will never know the original admirer so it is best not to look, not to speak.
    I am pleased to see James and tidy away my folder to make room for him. But he collects a cup of coffee, drops his bag at my table and with a dismissive hallo goes straight to the back where he joins the boys. Unusual for him but it really does not matter. I stretch my legs and with my heels draw in James’s bag to support my calves. Perhaps I should take my folder out again and try to work, but there is no point; the others will be here soon. Instead I decide on another cup of coffee. It is not an extravagance; I shall not have one this afternoon. With my ten-cent piece I tap on the stainless-steel counter until I realise that the sound is not drowned by the rowdy klawerjas players. No one has whistled. Have I in spite of my narrowing waistline become one of those who does not merit a second look?
    When Moira enters she stands for a moment framed in the doorway, blinking, for the sun has come out again. It is one of those just-spring days when the sun plays crazy kiss-catch games and the day revolves through all the seasons of the year. So Moira blinks in this darkness after the glare outside. The silence of her entry is unnerving.Moira has never moved in this room without a fanfare of whistles and an urgent drumming on the tables. She hesitates as if that exhalation of hot air is the only source of kinetic energy that will produce motion in her exquisite legs. Moira is indisputably beautiful. The smooth skin. The delicately sculpted form. The sleek brown hair.
    But now her eyes are troubled, her hovering form uncertain, so that I wave at her and lo, the legs swing into mobility, the left foot falls securely on the floor and she propels herself expertly towards me. ‘Coffee or tea,’ I whisper loudly and point at the table where my folder lies. Like an automaton she changes direction and manoeuvres into a chair.
    â€˜What’s going on in here? Where’s James?’ she asks.
    James always sits with us. We have learned to make allowances for the filtered version of friendship that boys offer; nevertheless his behaviour today is certainly treacherous. Why has he gone without explanation to join the dark tower of boys peering down on to the table at the back? It is clearly not the klawerjas game that holds their attention. Someone screened from our vision is talking quietly, then bangs a fist on the table. The voices grow more urgent. We watch James withdraw from the inner circle and perch on the back of a chair shaking his head, but he does not look across at us.
    By now the cafeteria is full. There is a long queue for coffee. The boys drift instinctively to the back to join the dark bank of murmuring males while the girls settle with their coffees at separate tables. Moira is agitated. What can they be talking about? We listen carefully but the sounds remain unintelligible. The group is no longer cohesive. It is too large, so that sub-groups mutter in cacophony, someone laughs derisively and above the noise the sound of MrJohnson’s gravel voice, herding the stragglers back into the fold. He is the older student who in his youth had something to do with politics and now wears the bereaved look of someone who cannot accept the death of the movement.
    â€˜I think,’ says Moira, ‘we should go and join them. If they’ve got something important to discuss then it’s bound to affect us so we ought to go and find