Now is the Time for Running

In this section of the story, the long-term nature of The Traumatic Effects of Political Violence becomes strikingly clear, for each new challenge that the brothers face serves as another domino in an ongoing cascade of difficulties. While they do encounter help along the way, mishap leads to mishap, and only The Solidarity of Brotherhood holds Deo and Innocent together as they struggle to complete their journey to South Africa. As they travel, Innocent does not always understand the reasons for certain necessities; for example, he is reluctant to give Mai Maria his shoes, not realizing that they are the price of his passage to what will hopefully be a safer place. However, he is nonetheless willing to trust Deo’s judgment, and as their challenges continue to intensify after the truck driver leaves them at the border, the brothers know that they must rely on each other in order to survive. In addition to the brotherly bond that keeps him on course, Deo also realizes that it is possible to develop experiences of solidarity and meaningful connection with new people he meets on his journey. At the border, for example, he finds a new version of The Solidarity of Brotherhood when he connects with several boys around his own age over a mutual game of soccer. Although they have had many different experiences, they all approach each other in good faith, and Aziz and his family are particularly willing to help Deo and Innocent to avoid being robbed. Additionally, during the river crossing, Patson goes out of his way to ensure that Innocent does not drown, while Innocent likewise does his best to keep Patson safe. 

When all the boys play soccer together, Deo starts to understand the potential for Overcoming Adversity Through Sports. For the first time since the massacre in Gutu, Deo feels that “there is no yesterday or the night before; there is no tomorrow or the day after that” (54); in this pure moment of camaraderie, there is only the game. Soccer lets him temporarily forget his grief and indulge in a moment of real joy, however short-lived it might be. This scene of intercultural connection foreshadows the ultimate goals and potential of the street soccer tournament that he joins at the end of the story. 

While the novel’s plot structure is driven by The Traumatic Effects of Political Violence, the author often contrives to build scenes in which the full reality of that violence remains only partially visible to Deo (and, by extension, to Williams’s younger readers). In moments such as these, the most brutal action of the scene takes place “offstage” and is only implied through brief, suggestive glimpses and sounds; thus, Williams once again leaves it up to the reader to fill in the missing pieces (or not), and he therefore manages to broach challenging topics such as violence and murder in such a way that a wide range of audiences can understand and learn from the story. Just as earlier chapters indirectly indicate the sexual assault that Deo’s mother endures, this chapter features a moment in which the extent of the violence outside the truck is never fully described. In some ways, however, leaving such scenes up to the reader’s imagination makes the moment even more visceral, and thus Williams uses narrative silence as a strategic method of heightening the emotional tension of the novel. Deo is aware that something terrible has happened, but he does not say what it was. He only relays what the soldiers said, the blood he saw on the ground, and the demeanor of the terrified truck driver. He does not clarify that when the soldiers ask, “Long sleeve or short sleeve?” (47), they are referring to the choice he is giving his victim of having their arm cut off at either the shoulder or the wrist. This is a real-life example of the kinds of violence that people in Zimbabwe faced after the 2008 election.

Until Deo and Innocent reach South Africa, the violence that they encounter is all state sanctioned. Once across the Limpopo, however, they start to experience the effects of an even more insidious type of violence: xenophobic aggression. The Ghuma-ghuma gang, which opportunistically aims to rob arriving refugees, is the first direct xenophobic threat that they encounter. Even the trip through the game reserve also indicates a more indirect form of xenophobia, for the inherent dangers of this route into the country imply that refugees receive no asylum or social support in South Africa. Instead, they are forced to overcome ever more treacherous challenges before they can finally find a place to rest. This lack of support makes it much more difficult for them to build new lives in a new country, even if they are lucky enough to survive the dangerous upheaval of their home country.

The people around Deo sometimes assert that there is “a better life” to be had in South Africa than in Zimbabwe (67), and while this may be true for some refugees, it is not always the case. As the events of the novel soon demonstrate, even South Africa has its own dangers and challenges—many of which Deo and Innocent do not yet understand. As they venture further into this new country, the economic realities of life in Zimbabwe and South Africa continue to be central to the brothers’ journey. It is also important to note that Zimbabwean currency is worth less every day, which seriously depletes Deo’s purchasing power despite the amount of money he still carries. The effects of the larger economic situation on the brothers’ journey make themselves felt in a variety of ways; for example, when Deo and Innocent make their deal with Mai Maria, she tells them to cross as soon as possible because the cost of the crossing is “two hundred [South African] rands—today that is twenty billion Zim dollars. Tomorrow it might be thirty billion” (61). The fact that Mai Maria is willing to take Deo and Innocent’s shoes as partial payment implies that the swift collapse of Zimbabwean currency is forcing people to improvise other forms of payment like barter instead of relying exclusively on paper money. Now that the boys have spent the last of their Zimbabwean cash, they must start over in South Africa with absolutely nothing.