A Faceless Compass: Johannesburg's haunted streets

Abstract

A Faceless CompassJohannesburg's haunted streets Ivan Vladislavić (bio) Like dogs we circle back to old territory. On the first Sunday after the lockdown has been shifted to Level 2, we drive across Johannesburg to walk on Van Buuren Road. When Minky and I lived in Troyeville we walked this route regularly, but we haven't been here for the better part of a decade. The last six months under lockdown have stretched the distance between our new neighborhood and the old. Everything looks emptier, bleaker, more faded in the wan sunlight. It's the end of winter and the place is as brittle as an old print under a film of dust. [End Page 17] We park as usual (if one can claim familiarity after so long an absence) in the retail strip off Nicol and then walk east on Van Buuren. No one would call this scenic—it's not the Sea Point Promenade—but it has its virtues, and Joburg walkers count those where they can. There are broad paths in fairly good shape set well back from the road, few cross streets to break your stride, just enough passing traffic to feel safe. There is shade in the summer too, although the oaks and planes are bare now. The paths were swept not long ago, and leaves are piled haystack-high against garden walls or stuffed into garbage bags, squashed together under the trees like enormous black berries. The plots here are large, and some of the houses are grand, but many of them are neglected. The Penny Farthing Guesthouse still promises "Try Us—You'll Come Back Again!!!" but there is only one car in the drive and the bicycle mural is flaking. The traffic on Van Buuren has got busier over the years, and the road is now lined with more cluster developments and businesses than freestanding houses. The bigger, flashier homes, the nouveau-riche palaces that define this suburb, are to the south, down side streets that have been closed off by booms or palisades. It feels good to stretch our legs, so after a kilometer or so, we follow the curve into Harper Road past the Health Club. Although the restrictions were eased a week ago, the gates of the Club are still chained and a Covid-19 notice is wired to the bars. The football field used by the Sunday league is empty. At the end of Harper, where it bumps into the R24, we go right. Since we were last here, more houses have been turned into businesses or demolished to make way for small office buildings. We laugh about the Longevity Lounge, a skin-rejuvenation salon, and we laugh even more about the Happily Ever Laughter restaurant. On the Corobrik apron outside the New Delhi Indian Restaurant two glossy starlings hop and glitter, while a blacksmith plover stilts around, pecking at the joints between paving stones, keeping an eye on us. The last plover we came across was standing on a rock in the water beside a low-level [End Page 18] bridge across the Olifants River, where he belonged. What's this one doing here in the suburbs? We wait for him to call, but he's tight-beaked and wary, and only when we walk on does he send three quick anvil-clinks after us. Construction is going on against the odds. The Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese Buddhist NGO that does charity work and disaster relief around the world, is putting up a hall on the site of its old, more modest headquarters. Only half built, the Jing Si Hall already looks uncannily like the artist's impression on an immense billboard. Perhaps the builders consult the picture from time to time, like jigsaw-puzzlers consulting the lid of the box. The stocky pillars and front-porch eaves (Dr. Google informs me later) are shaped like the Chinese character for "human." We turn back into Van Buuren and enter a stretch of old-school Tuscany. Twin goddesses in togas, gossamer rendered lightly in chocolate-brown concrete, hold cornucopias on either side of a motorized gate. The slots tell me they are letter boxes. The...