The Pickup

Chapter 40

Dear Archie,

You won’t be too surprised to hear from me, and you’ll know that it probably means I’m coming to you — for something. Because you’ve always been the one I could ask. This time it’s money. Ibrahim has been granted a visa for America. It was never a problem to get one for me, but it has taken months and endless hassle to arrange for him. He’s been turned down by every other country he’s tried. I still don’t know how he’s done it — better not ask! You’ll understand that, after his experience in S.A.

So we have the green light for the USA. But my dollars have run out. We couldn’t have and wouldn’t have expected his family to keep us. His earnings here (work he’s had as a favour from a relative) and the small sums I’ve been able to add by having the nerve to teach English, are not enough to pay our airfares and give us a breather when we get there. Could I ask, I am asking, could you possibly, somehow, let me have the equivalent of about 5,000 dollars? I know exchange control regulations may make this difficult, but any currency you could arrange to come to me from your contacts anywhere, would be fine. Ibrahim has a friend at a bank in the capital who will take care of the draft and get us the proper rate of exchange at this end. I am enclosing a sheet with all details of the bank for the transfer, however you can do it.

Dear Archie, I would hope to pay back some time. I wanted to write to you, anyway, not long ago, about the possibility of a pre-inheritance from the Trust you know was set up — but that’s no doubt something complex that would take time, and we really have to have cash right now. So to be honest, I won’t be able to meet the debt too soon because we don’t know what our situation will be in the USA. But eventually, I’ll write again for your advice on how I could perhaps draw on that Trust. I suppose in America I could most likely get the same kind of work I used to do. I could contact the principals there, of the people I worked for in Johannesburg, it’s an international spider, legs down all over the place. If they make some sort of in-house request to employ me apparently a work permit won’t be a problem. For the moment, Ibrahim’s been granted one, I’m just the wife he’s supposed to provide for while she sits and watches TV.

Archie, I don’t know how to say how grateful we’ll both be to you.

You know I can’t ask my father.

With much love, as it’s always been,

Julie