Keeping Secrets

I remember what it was like Before. I flew over the ice like a swallow on the wind. Music filled my whole body, and I soared like a bird above the city of Johannesburg—Egoli—place of gold. I dreamed of gold medals and going to the Olympics someday.

But that was Before.

I was only a child, too young to know that life can collapse as fast as a skater can lose an edge and tumble to the ice. It hurts to fall, but you get up, and you keep skating. You smile for the judges, and you don’t let them see the pain. That’s what winners do.

But sometimes, the hurt is too much, and you can’t get up. You can’t keep skating.

Then you lose.

* * *

So begins my novel Keeping Secrets about HIV in a middle class family from the Johannesburg suburb of Kempton Park where I live. My friend Ruthie won’t like it because it’s sad, but the ending is hopeful and (I think) very powerful. I’ve been working on it for most of the last three years. It has been through its second round of peer critique when I give it to other writers or people who know the situation and ask for suggestions. It finally seems to be coming together, almost ready to submit to a publisher. That’s none too soon since our volunteer visas expire in three weeks and we return to North America.

Sometime in the next three weeks I need to visit an AIDS ward at Thembisa hospital. Cicely wants a scene between the time Sindi’s father goes to the hospital and when he dies--to better show the closeness of their relationship. This morning (on my way back from early morning practice at the ice rink) I figured out what happens in that scene. I am familiar with U.S. ICU wards. I have been in African hospitals in Kenya and Mozambique and visited AIDS hospices here in South Africa. I have even been to the clinic at Thembisa where they do voluntary counseling and testing. But I have never seen a ward in Thembisa Hospital. I don’t know what it looks like or smells like. I don’t know what Sindi would see or hear while she sits at her father’s bedside. I’m pretty sure visiting hours are more strict than they were at Abbot Northwest in Minneapolis. There’s so much I need to know if my African audience is going to say, “Yes. She understands.”

I’d like to find someone to go with me to Thembisa Hospital. Maybe someone from the Arebaokeng children’s program on Tuesday….