May We Be Forgiven

see there are balls of tea, each one labeled with the time of day and day of week they are to be used. Tonight’s ball is a dark purply black.
    “Would you like cream and sugar?” Bongani asks me.
    “Some honey if you have it,” I say.
    “At safari camp we have it all,” he says. And it is uncomfortably true.
    After dinner, I drink the tea, which is smooth and calming, and take a bath while the children watch movies—I overhear them talking. Ashley tells the boys that it’s very hard to be a girl in South Africa—girls get no respect. The boys tell her they haven’t noticed; I’m impressed that she did. “It’s depressing,” she tells them. “The women do all the work of cooking and cleaning but have no authority, no one cares about them.”
    “I’m sure people care about them,” I say as I’m coming out of the bathroom. “But it may be that the fight for racial equality overtook the fight for women’s equality.”
    “Basically,” she says, flouncing off to her bed, “girls don’t rank.”
    Bongani offers to make the children a bonfire at which they can roast marshmallows. Their faces light up.
    Oiled with insect repellent, they go outside to make s’mores; from the tent I can see the firelight flickering across their faces.
    I stay inside. I’m exhausted but feeling a bit better, almost high in a strange way. I count nine tea balls left.
    Ricardo falls asleep by the fire; Bongani carries him inside. “Do you want me to change him into sleeping clothes?” Bongani asks.
    “I’ve got it, but thank you,” I say.
    As Ashley and Nate get ready for bed, Bongani asks the children if they would like to hear a story.
    “Yes,” they say.
    And we are lulled to sleep listening to the melodic rise and fall of Bongani’s voice as he tells tales of heroic elephants and lions of long ago.
    About an hour later, Ricardo wakes up and comes to the side of my bed. “I’m scared,” he says, climbing into the big bed. A little while later, Ashley says, “I can’t sleep,” and crawls in next to Ricardo. At 2 a.m., Nate wordlessly joins us. We are like a pack of dogs, curled around each other, softly snoring, jockeying for pillows and blankets. It’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had all year.

    A t dawn, Bongani is already preparing breakfast. He notices that I am awake and brings me tea. When the children wake I have more tea and some plain toast and watch the children consume an enormous breakfast. While we are eating, I ask Bongani about his family. He says they are all well and that he has lived here his whole life.
    We are told to pack bathing suits and a change of clothes, and take off on an early ride in pursuit of elephants. This time the couple from the Netherlands is in another car, and we are on our own. A child in one of the other cars has a temper tantrum and throws his stuffed animal overboard; the cars all come to a halt. Dirk approaches the little boy; I’m worried he’s going to give him a talking to about breaking the rules. Instead, he gives the boy a lollipop to quiet him while Josia hops out to pick the teddy out of the brush, and we continue on.
    At the next stop, while the others are shooting photos, I mention to Dirk how magical I find Bongani’s presence. Dirk tells me that Bongani’s father was murdered and that his mother became a prostitute in order to survive and later died of AIDS.
    We have a feast of a picnic lunch at a picture-perfect spot under an enormous tree, which just happens to have several swings—strung from enormously long ropes that allow the children to sail through the air. The air smells deliciously like earth and grass. “Picnic” means cocktails and large comfortable chairs, as well as beautiful tables set with real dishes and food that materializes out of endless enormous wicker hampers. On the way back to the camp, we stop at a river where dressing “tents” have been set up and we’re told we can swim, alligator-free, while a “lifeguard” with a gun stands watch. The children go in. I abstain, fearing parasites or anything that might aggravate my digestive tract.
    That night, after dinner, there is no pretense about who is sleeping where; we all put on our pajamas, hop into the big bed, and sip warm cocoa as Bongani talks us to sleep.

    W hat do you want? Tuttle asked me, what seems like months ago. I want this, whatever this is, never to end.

    T he next morning, while the children are visiting a nearby crocodile farm, I’m busy