Chapter Three

That night Rashid lionized from Martin Luther King until he fall asleep by effeteness. I could not sleep because I was all churned up inside. I was torn between admiration and disbelief. A black man fighting for equality of blacks and whites, was he joking? A black man wanting to enforce rules that also whites should follow. That was impossible. No black man will ever speak over whites. Never! In the anthill there are no rules at all! There are not even blacks telling other blacks what to do. But the more Rashid was talking about King, the more he was step by step making a decision. He wanted to get to America at all costs. But I had my doubts. It had always been a dream to go away but for me it had always been a dream for dreaming away and not a dream for coming true. It had nothing to do with reality but with thinking of something better when I was sad. But when Rashid woke the next morning, he was totally clear: “We leave that night”. He would never have left me back here so the decision he had taken had been a decision for the two of us. All my live I had done what Rashid had asked me to do without thinking about it. But this time it was different.
“I don’t wanna come”.
“It’s not a question of what ya want anymore! Animal or human, hunger or food, life or death, that’s it!” I thought for a minute.
“Who tells us that it will be better in America?”
“Mr. King does!”
“You don’t know that man. What if he’s lying? In the anthill I have at least some friends, in America there might be nothing!” Rashid looked down.
“You will have me.”

At this moment it had been decided. There was no choice for me. I knew that Rashid would loose all hopes in his life if I would not come.
“But how do we get there?” I asked him.
“My friend Bobo worked at the port for the last two years. He said sometimes he could do a good deal with some crew members of the big freighters. But working in the port is more dangerous cause ya have to care extremely about the harbour police.”
“So ya wanna go by ship?”
“Well, do ya wanna swim over the ocean?” I said nothing.
“Of course by ship. Once in two weeks there is a big freighter going from Kapstadt to Washington. The next one will be tomorrow night so we have to hurry up.” Silence was my answer.

We left in the morning. If we had been able to write, maybe we would have left a note for our siblings (which will possibly never return to our flat again) but first of all we cannot write and second they wouldn’t be able to read it.
Rashid forbade me to tell somebody personally about our plans. He said maybe my friends would disclose us faster than we could have a try to leave.
I did not sleep all night long. We left silently shortly after sunrise and now we are on our long way to the port. We are lucky cause Bobo came home two days ago to bring some of his earnings to his family. He always does this only once a month cause the distance from the port to the Anthill is too long to visit more often. That’s why Bobo is going back to the port today and he’ll shows us the way.
“Do ya come with us to America?” I look at Bobo.
“Naw, that’s impossible peewee! Our common way ends at the port. I have to care for my family in the anthill and my mother is too old and sick for doing adventures!” While he said ‘adventure’, my heart suddenly started pounding.