Sharkey then counted the streets from there to the hotel, and after he checked in, needing to walk, he went back to the area the driver had warned him about, District Six. It was a chilly evening, dark, with a damp wind from the harbor. Down a side street he heard loud music from a building and entered—a club that was filled with people dancing to a band. The men were dressed in suits and ties, and some women in bright dresses lingered at the bar, smiling at Sharkey in his sweatshirt as he passed them.

“Where do you come from?” a woman asked. She was tall, with a shaved head, in a long loose gown. Purple lipstick suited her blackness and shimmered in the light of the glitter ball.

“America.”

“I want to see a real cowboy,” she said, laughing.

“I’m a real cowboy,” he said, and the woman laughed harder. “Have a beer.”

At once the woman ceased laughing and raised her hand, gesturing as she spoke, in a marveling voice. “I was born in this city. I have lived here my whole life. I tell you no white man has ever bought me a bottle of beer.” She ordered it in her own language, shouting at the barman and seeming to announce it to the women near her, and pushed a stool toward Sharkey.

They drank together in silence for a while, the woman smiling, then she said, “What are you doing here, man?”

“Looking for waves.”

“None in this place!” Her laugh was full-throated, attracting attention, but the women who heard her laughed too, as though inspired.

“Jeffreys Bay.”

“That is too far away. Eastern Cape. You will need a car.”

“I’ll get a car.”

He needed to repeat it. The music was so loud they had difficulty hearing each other, so they listened to the music instead. The crush of people, many of them staring at Sharkey, pushed them closer to each other. Sharkey marveled at the fact that he had been in the city such a short time—an hour or so—and he was among lively people, getting drunk, drenched in sweat, smothered by loud music—happy, feeling he’d found out how to belong.

When he caught the woman’s eye he lowered his head and said in her ear, “What’s your name?”

“Thandi.”

“Come with me to my hotel, Thandi.”

“I will be arrested,” she said, and grasped his arm. “Follow me.”

She led him through the crowd at the bar and out a side door to an alley and, taking his hand, hurried him to the end of it, where in the semidarkness Sharkey saw a picket fence, higher than his head. Leaning against the fence, the woman lifted her long gown with one hand and drew Sharkey nearer to her with her other hand, tugging on his sleeve.

“What?”

“Jig-jig,” she said.