What the Universe knows
How to utterly break a man down, then build him up again
MARCH 6 is a sweltering Wednesday and my trusty Citi Chico and I are taking the scenic route from Cape Town to Johannesburg. There aren’t any signs pointing off the N2 to the R339. As I find it, I realise why. Tar slowly turns to gravel, then boulders that look like rhino droppings. It can’t be that bad, I tell myself. Uniondale is only a short drive from Knysna.
My car, filled to capacity with my junk, bounces and bobs as I traverse the top of the forest. It is beautiful and terrifying and bizarre, especially when my phone rings and I have a conversation with my friend Stefan about not knowing what direction to follow before it cuts out. Completely alone, I fumble towards Uniondale for two excruciating hours and breathe a sigh of relief as the road becomes smooth again.
The N9 is boring and I try to make up for lost time by doing exactly 120km/h. I pass towns whose names I will never remember, and cross the imaginary line between the Eastern and Western Cape. Google Maps says it will probably be about four hours to Graaff-Reinet. Somewhere between nowhere and another nowhere, an innocuous noise starts turning into a grunt and then a massive bang. I can feel the car bucking under me. I try to steer it this way and that, but it’s going wherever it wants to go. It jerks and screeches, then stops.
Surprised to be unharmed, I climb out of the now lopsided vehicle. A man slows down, does a thumbs up and keeps driving. It’s only a flat, probably from all that gravel. Sweat pours down my face and, because the Universe knows, my friend Wilma calls to check up on me. I don’t have time to talk though, because I have to nervously pull out suitcases and find the spanner et al. Roughly a half hour later, I seem to be on my way, dripping and traumatised.
My relief lasts for about five minutes — then I hear the spare give in. A few minutes of angry desperation subside and I get out and start waving. A handful of people pass me, stony faced and sorry. My face must look especially needy because, after an hour, a kind soul named Charles and his friend, whose name I do not remember, stop to help.
It isn’t a quick fix because, in my shaken stupor, I seem to have dropped the locknut somewhere and left a perfectly good rim on the side of the road. Charles tells me to relax, and his friend watches my car while we go searching in their car.
Charles, a teacher, astutely surveys the ground but it’s fruitless. We finally give up and assume that I will have to get towed. On the way back, he stops abruptly and tells me to cross my fingers. He jumps out and is back in an instant, locknut in hand. The rim, though, is
I have left a perfectly good rim on the side of the road
long gone.
I lock up almost all the contents of my life on the side of the road and they drive me to Aberdeen, a town I will forever remember for its singular ATM, singular petrol station and singular blend of tragedy and charm. New tyre purchased from the singular mechanic, they drive me back to my car and, without asking, Charles hops out and changes my tyre, telling me to get a spare as soon as I get to “town”. He adds that he will find me a rim from a friend of his.
They follow me into Graaff-Reinet, because I remind Charles of his son at university in Port Elizabeth. He thinks maybe someone will help if this ever happens to him. He will come back with the rim tomorrow.
It starts to rain as the N9 becomes Kollege Road and then Kerk Straat, because the Universe knows. — Faraaz Mahomed is a clinical psychologist based in Johannesburg.