Hillbrow Blues

Abstract

It goes fast. Pretoria Street is shorter than ze remembered; ze’s looking for the hotel on the right side whose name ze has repressed, no, simply forgotten, but ze doesn’t see any signs at all, nor any traces of bookshops, cafés or lunch restaurants. Lots of people in the street, mostly young men, no suits or ties, a few older women, no commerce, shutters closed, the entire Carlton Hotel shut down like a ghost tower, the garage doors locked with chains, but no roadblocks or burning oil drums… The Nigerians and the Zimbabweans have ruined the place, says the taxi driver with a matter-of-fact distaste that reminds hir of hir first taxi ride in Joburg fifteen years ago, that time with a white driver venting his contempt over the black hordes that had invaded the formerly secluded city.