Chapter 1 - Luvuyo

Phones should be banned. At least when I'm on deadline. The ringing, after a morning where I've struggled to focus, jars me from my hard-won concentration and the little I've been able to accomplish. I thought I'd silenced that thing, but apparently not.

"Could you answer that?" I shout to my assistant Khanyi.

The insistent ring of my cellphone from the kitchen — there is nowhere in this Melville house you can't hear a phone — is the latest in a long line of distractions I've tried to ignore. I need to make more progress on this draft because my editor has been up my ass over this deadline. She's in that teeth-gritted smile phase, where she asks for things nicely and at least tries to hide her frustration, but she moved to full snarl with my first book, and it's not an experience I want to repeat. The problem is that every time I think I know what I'm supposed to be writing, the creative well goes as dry as the war-torn deserts where I earned my reputation as a journalist in the field. Is this the famous difficult second book? Or just not figuring my shit out?

That one.

The ringing stops and I shove the call from my mind, flipping through my notes, scouring them for the details I need for the chapter I'm working on.

Khanyi clears her throat, and I glance up to find her standing in the door of my study, phone pressed to her chest.

"Yeah? What's up?" I ask, running a hand down my face and leaning back until my chair creaks.

"Um... do you want to take this call?"

"Is that a real question? You've worked with me long enough to know the answer is always no."

Khanyi grimaces and nods, her pink locs twisted into a topknot bobbing with the movement.

"She just... she says you'll want to talk to her."

"Unlikely. Take her number and feel free to lose it until I finish this book."

I squint at the notes on my desk, trying to decode my own hieroglyphic handwriting. The scribbled phrase could be Arab Spring or... I give up. In my defence, these notes were hastily jotted on a palm-sized notepad. Phone dead, bombs overhead, hidden in a cave with barely any light, I made do.

"I was going to take a message," Khanyi says, hesitation in her voice, "but she said before you get rid of me, tell Transkei he can make time for an old friend."

My head snaps up and I narrow my eyes on her.

"Transkei, huh?" A pleased grin chases my scowl away.

Only one person has ever called me that. I hold out my hand, flicking my fingers for Khanyi to give me the phone. I look down at the screen to check the call is muted.

"I'm going, but I left lunch on the counter from that Portuguese place on Grant Avenue." Khanyi crosses her arms over her chest and scolds with a glance. "Actually eat it this time, ne? If I come back tomorrow and it's still there cold and unopened then I—"

"I'll eat. Got it. Go."

As soon as she turns to leave, I unmute the phone and lean back in my seat.

"Zanele Ntshangase. What the hell do you want?"

Her rich laughter hasn't changed in twenty years and the sound of it tugs my mouth into a reluctant one-sided grin.

"Awu, so you do remember the little people."

"Pfft. Little people, my ass. I hear you're running Fort Hare now, Madam Dean of Student Affairs. Congrats on the promotion."

"Thank you. I assumed you hadn't given your alma mater a second thought since you left in your final year and never looked back."

"Convocation would beg to differ. They're on me for donations all the time and I never say no."

"Glad to hear it, 'cause I need a huge favour and I don't want to hear anything but yes coming out of that mouth, mfethu."

"My wallet is always open."

"It's not your money I need this time. Though we'll always take the kind that folds." She laughs again, and it transports me back to the Fort Hare dining hall, a boy fresh off a plane from Berlin, when I could barely afford the cardboard they tried to pass off as a pie.

"I want you to come for the Homecoming."

"And do what? Nah, I'm under deadline."

"The Homecoming's not for another month. I would've asked you sooner, but the idea just occurred to me."

"And what made it occur?"

"Well, the fact that your daughter is Miss Fort Hare, for one."

I sit up straight in my chair and scowl. "Haibo. What did you say?"

"She didn't tell you?"

When did Céline and I last speak? She called last week, and I know she didn't have my full attention because I was in the middle of a tough chapter, but I would remember her saying she'd taken the crown.

Wouldn't I?

"It must have slipped her mind."

We both know that would be the last thing to slip the mind of a young woman voted Miss Fort Hare, but Zanele is kind enough not to say it. Or maybe in the years since we've seen each other, her kindness has evolved into professional discretion. Either way, I appreciate her not calling bullshit.

"Yeah, well, she is Miss Fort Hare and I assumed you'd be here for her?"

The question dangles in the air posed with innocence, but to my guilty ears, tinged with accusation. How many times have I not been there for my daughter? Not because I didn't love her, but because I loved the story. Loved the chase. Loved my job reporting "important" things to the rest of the world. Maybe Céline even thinks I loved those things more.

Who could blame her for wondering?

"I'll call her as soon as we're done. Of course, I want to be there, but that doesn't mean I want to do whatever you're proposing."

"I know it's the last thing on your mind, but it's Fort Hare's hundred and tenth."

"Wow. I didn't realise."

"Yoh. A hundred and ten years, so you know we're going all out. It's such a great year for Céline to have the crown."

"Yeah, it is. That's amazing."

"Well, we, of course, already have a ton of stuff planned, but when Céline won it, it started my wheels turning."

"Oh, I remember those wheels. They always got us in trouble."

"Hayi, the dean dropped those charges, so don't throw that shit in my face."

I can't help but laugh and shake my head. "Zee, wena. Get to the point. What do you want?"

"I want you to do an interview on Homecoming weekend."

I stiffen in my seat. Over the course of my career, I've lost count of the number of interviews I've conducted, but being on the other side of the mic and pen—somebody digging through my bins? That I rarely do. My publisher insisted I do promo for my first book and I'm sure I'll have to do some for this one, but answering questions about myself isn't something I enjoy or do unless I absolutely have to.

"I'll definitely show up for Céline, but not sure about the interview." I glance at the calendar on my watch. "When is it?"

"Second week of April."

And my daughter didn't even mention it?

"Let me talk to Céline and we'll see."

I feel pretty confident it'll be a no on the interview, but Zanele and I got each other through three years at Fort Hare before I left to spend my final year abroad. We haven't talked in a long time, but that counts for something. The least I can do is let her down gently.

"Please say yes, Luvuyo. Can you imagine two of the most famous Fortharians alive sitting down for an interview at the hundred and tenth? That would be huge."

"Two of us? What do you mean?"

"You and Nolwazi. I thought it'd be cool if she's the one interviewing you."

Nolwazi.

The name lands on my chest and compresses the air in my lungs for a second.

She was part of our little clique in journalism school. There were a few of us, and it was clear from the beginning that Nolwazi Mabaso and I were the most driven. It created an affinity between us that, by all rights, should have evolved into something else. Maybe it would have had I not spent that last year in Paris. Of course, I've heard her name over the years. If my career took me far and wide, indulged my wanderlust, Nolwazi's planted her firmly here at home as the nation's sweetheart on the most popular morning show in the country, served up like brown sugar in everyone's coffee to start their day. We've even been in the same room a few times for state banquets, award evenings, and the like, but we never offered each other more than a cursory greeting, each interaction cool, but with something boiling underneath. At least boiling for me. You don't survive wars and hostile interviews with dictators without learning to dissemble a bit. Maybe what you see with Nolwazi is still what you get.

It's natural for friends to drift apart after varsity. With a career like mine—one that takes you all over the world and keeps you on the move—there are a lot of people I lost touch with. I just always wished Nolwazi hadn't been one of them. It's irrational, but Nolwazi felt like the one who got away. Can someone "get away" when you've never had them? I clear my throat, needing to keep my voice even so Zanele doesn't detect any spike of interest now that there is the chance I'll get to see Nolwazi.

"You, uh, talked to Nolwazi about this?"

"No, I thought I'd have more leverage if I already had your buy-in."

"But you don't have my buy-in."

"Yet." She rushes on before I can interrupt again. "Picture this. That Thursday or Friday of Homecoming weekend, we put up a huge screen on Freedom Square so everyone can see and we could simulcast it on the campus radio station."

"Zee, I—"

"Your daughter is Miss Fort Hare in the university's hundred and tenth year. Don't you think it would be special to her having you so involved in her big weekend?"

"You are mercilessly using my daughter to get me to do this. It's manipulative and beneath you."

"Yeah, but is it working?"

I laugh because even seeing through what she's doing, there's something guileless about Zanele. Always has been.

"Let me talk to Céline and I'll get back to you. Is this number you're calling from good?"

"Yeah, you can reach me here. It's my cellphone."

"How'd you get my number, by the way?"

"Like you said, I run things now."

I can't fight back the grin Zanele always effortlessly coaxed from all of us.

"Goodbye, Zee."

When we disconnect, I stare at the phone in my hand for a few seconds, processing how out of touch I must be with Céline's life. I know the basics. I pay her fees, her res, and the allowance that lands in her account on the first. I remember a few of the internships she's applying for because she specifically said she didn't want my help. She didn't want special treatment, so she's been using her mother's surname, Zibi, since they moved back from France so she could do her high school and her degree here. She has never used the first name I chose for her either — Nomvuyo, picked out in a flat in Paris the week she was born. Mother of joy, the feminine of my own. To everybody who has ever met her, she is Céline. On the one hand I respect her wanting to make her own way in the field where I've found so much success. She doesn't want to lean on my name, but I also want to be more involved.

Her mother's voice echoes from the past in my ears; pleas for me to take off work and spend time with Céline. To come off the road. I've missed a lot, but my baby girl crowned at our alma mater, on the same lawns my grandparents crossed? At least I can make that.

"Daddy, bonjour." Her mother and I are both South African, but French language and culture weave in and out of everything she does.

"You can take the girl out of Paris, but you can't take Paris out of the girl, huh? How are you?"

"I'm fine. Um... what's up? Something wrong?"

"Can't your old man just call to see how you're doing?"

"You can, but..."

But I don't often. I sigh and wish I was calling just to be calling.

"Actually I just got off the phone with Zanele Ntshangase."

"From student affairs?"

"Well, yeah, but she and I were actually pretty good friends at varsity."

"I think she mentioned that in, like, first-year orientation when she said she'd be keeping an eye on me for you."

The exasperation in her voice sketches a grin onto my face.

"If I couldn't be there in person, I had my allies. Zanele mentioned you've been voted Miss Fort Hare."

"Yeah. I was gonna tell you. It just happened."

"Your mother knows?"

"Of course."

Of course.

"She's been busy," Céline says quickly, a defence in her words. "I told her I wanted to tell you myself. I didn't think... well, I didn't think you would..."

Mind? Care?

Frustration wars with my own guilt.

"It's not a big deal, Dad."

"What's not a big deal? That you won or that you didn't tell me?"

The pause between us gathers dust while I wait for her response.

"I mean... there are a lot of things about my life you don't know. That's not new."

When she was growing up, there seemed to be a bottomless pit of grace when I missed birthday parties because I was in Goma or recitals because there was a war. Big things. Important things, but the resignation, the ancient disappointment in her voice makes me wish I could roll back the years and make different choices.

"I'd like to be there," I tell her. "I assume your mother will be."

"It's her and Tata's anniversary. They booked a cruise months ago so they actually can't come."

The first time I heard my daughter call her stepfather Tata I nearly lost my shit, but Anele told me to get out of my feelings and be grateful there was a good man consistently present in Céline's life. Anele married her husband Sizwe when Céline was only ten years old, and he has been there in a way my job hasn't always allowed me to be.

"If your mom and Sizwe won't be there, all the more reason I should be."

"Whatever, Dad. It's not a big deal."

"It is to me. I want to be there for you."

"Okay. Look, I... um, I have class in a few minutes. I gotta go."

"Before you go, Zanele... Ms Ntshangase wants me to do an interview as part of Homecoming weekend."

"An interview? You never do those."

"Right, but it's the hundred and tenth, and she thinks an interview with Nolwazi might—"

"Nolwazi Mabaso?" Céline's voice pitches an octave higher.

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh, my god! You have to. She's amazing. I love her. So she would come for the Homecoming?"

I resist reminding her that her own father is an acclaimed journalist with a Nat Nakasa and two Vodacoms to my name.

"I don't think they've asked her yet. But they wanted to make sure I was on board first."

"You're doing it, right? Dad, please. Having her here for the Homecoming would be everything."

"You sound more excited to have her there than me." I keep the teasing in my voice so she knows I'm not offended. Or at least not too badly.

"Sorry, Dad. She's a pioneer for Black women in journalism on television. I respect her so much. We all do."

"It's fine. I get it. She is pretty fantastic. Always has been actually."

"You know her? Like personally?"

"We were at Fort Hare together."

"What? You never told me that."

"She and I didn't keep in touch. Didn't talk much at all after I left to spend my final year in Paris."

"After you met Mom, you mean?" A dozen questions and suggestions hide behind her tone.

"It wasn't like that. We weren't like that. Nolwazi and I were just friends, Céline."

It's true, but incomplete. It doesn't reveal how much more I wanted with the girl of my dreams. How for three years I worked up the courage to ask for what I had secretly craved, only to blow it in one night.

"You have to do it, Dad. Like you have to. Nolwazi Mabaso at the Homecoming?"

"You do realise some would see me as a draw, too, right?"

"Yeah, but you're my father. She's... she's her."

"Alright. For you, I'll do it. I'm so proud of you, Céline. Miss Fort Hare is a big deal. I'm glad I'll get to be there for it."

Silence prevails on the other end for a string of seconds where the conversation cools, going from Céline's excitement over the interview with Nolwazi, back to the scepticism, indifference—whatever it is she feels about me showing up this time.

"Yeah. That'll be cool," she finally agrees. "I really gotta go. Class."

"Right. Sure. We'll talk more later. Love you."

After an almost imperceptible pause, she says, "Love you, too, Dad."

As soon as we disconnect and before I can talk myself out of it, I send Zanele the message that will give me much-needed time with my daughter and bring Nolwazi and me back together really for the first time in two decades.

I'm in.