Jump and Other Stories

A White soldier in South Africa bides his time in a hotel room. The hotel provides him generous accommodations—a wide-screen television, a cassette player, and money for new clothes—but he cannot leave. To pass the time, he watches a film about the atrocities of Vietnam, then turns away from the screen, feeling the horrors of war within himself and his own actions. He waits to be given a permanent residence as a result of a peace deal: “A house and a car. Eventually some sort of decent position. Rehabilitated” (5). The solider was interviewed by numerous news outlets when he was first brought to the hotel, but not anymore.

The soldier’s parents came to South Africa from Europe in search of better opportunities. His parents are apolitical and don’t associate or care about the Black community being segregated and displaced in South Africa. As a child, the soldier bonds with his neighbors by enrolling in a local parachute club. The Black community fights a revolution for more political power, and the soldier’s family feels indifferent. One day at the beach, the soldier takes a picture of a bird on a tower and is arrested by Black soldiers. They believe he is an imperialist spy and detain him.