Written in Roger Smiths characteristic
violent and powerful prose, Ishamel Toffee is about the unlikely friendship
between former criminal Ishamel, a brown man, and Cindy, a six-year-old white girl from a
privileged background. Set in multiracial and crime-ridden Cape Town, the story sharply
undercuts several commonly-held paradigms about class, race, and crime at every turn. We can see
the paradigm shift in the story's choice ofitself.
Tattoo-covered ex-con
Ishmael is known as a jockey because of his short, child-like stature. His second name
toffee is probably an ironic nod at the grisly, decidedly non-sweet nature of his crimes, and
also to his caramel skin. Recently released on parole for good behavior, Ishmael is initially
set up as a hard-to-like character. For one, he has committed violent crimes against men and
women, including sexual assault and murder. His language is coarse and steeped in misogyny, and
he purposely ignores the many crimes going on in the Flats, his urban neighborhood of shanties
and huts. He has little faith in God or people and is only focused on survival.
In contrast to scrawny Ishmael is the white lawyer Johnny Goddard, who has agreed to
employ Ishmael as a gardener as part of a social service initiative. His appearance, his
privilege, and his do-gooder gesture all mark him out as a decent guy and a foil to Ishmaels
crudeness.
Beautiful teeth, Johnny Goddard, all clean and
white in his tanned face. He is a nice-looking man, with his straight blond hair that falls
across his forehead so he has to push it back.
Goddard is
single parent to Cindy, who is described to be as blond and adorable as her father. At first,
Cindy being in Ishmaels space seems discomfiting to us, knowing what we know about him. Yet, in
a stunning reversal of expectations, we realize that the man Cindy is in danger from is not the
former murderer who has now lost the appetite for killing and considers gardening his biggest
passion.
No, Cindys monster is her own, beatific father.
We learn that Goddard routinely sexually abuses his child. Thus, the author shows us
the grim violence that goes on in an upper-class, white neighborhood, a place where we least
expect it. Whats more, the perpetrator of violence against a child is a parent, not the
proverbial stranger kids are usually warned against. Cindy notes thisherself.
Dont trust people, her mommy who has gone to heaven told her. Be
careful. And the teachers at the kindergarten say, watch out for strangers.
Smith draws our attention to the fact that despite society often
demonizing the other, most crimes against children and women are committed by people known by
themand even close to them. Resourceful Cindy instinctively senses this truth and decides to
befriend and trust Ishmael, the sort of man she has always been warned against. Though Ishmael
knows his closeness to a white, upper-class child is bound to attract him the wrong kind of
attention, he cant harden his heart against Cindy. In a quote that foreshadows Ishmaels
discovery of Goddards crime, he notes:
Now, Ishmael has
done a lot of bad things to a lot of people. Most times if he didnt do it to them, they would
have done it to him. The way it works when you born the wrong side of life. But Ishmael never
done bad things to a kid. Not never.
After Ishmael learns
about the dark goings-on in the Goddard household, he does something astonishing, making us
abandon our perceptions about him yet again. From the time the story opens, we know all
forty-five-year-old Ishmael Toffee wants is to stay under the radar, avoid the attention of cops
and criminal gangs alike, and mind his own business. He knows that though the world is full of
suffering, it is not his job to fix it. Yet, when he learns about Cindys abuse, he does
everything he set out to avoid once out of jail. He takes Cindy away from her house, an act he
well knows will be construed as a kidnapping. Whats more, he does so knowing that the odds of
class and race are heavily stacked against him.
Further, Ishmael is not the
first adult to discover Goddards truth. The Goddards housekeeper, Florence, a matronly brown
woman, has already discovered the abuse. We expect the older, quasi-motherly figure to report
the matter to the police and rescue Cindy, but Florence chooses to use her knowledge to
blackmail Goddard for money. This is one more paradigm reversed, proving another sad truth.
Unlike what we think, sometimes women themselves can be complicit in violence against girls and
children.
Ishmaels plans to take Cindy to the social worker who helped him
out are thwarted. Worse, after Goddard announces an award for finding his daughter, criminal
gangs go on the hunt for Ishmael and Cindy. Despite evading them in several hair-raising
situations, Ishmael and Cindy find themselves in a bind. Cindy is caught and returned to her
father, while Ishmael is brutally beaten up, stabbed, and left to die. We fear a horrifically
tragic end in the offing, yet Ishmael is still not ready to give up. He now understands that
there is only one way to rescue Cindy from Goddard.
Ishmael pushes away from the bars and staggers on down the sidewalk, knows where he is
going now and what he has to do. Prays he lasts long enough to get it done.
He comes to another store and presses the buzzer on the safety gate...A fat Boer stands
behind the counter, gut swelling over his khaki shorts, gun holstered at his hip.
Ja? the Boer says, staring at Ishmael.
Gimme one of them, Ishmael says,
pointing at the Okapi knife beneath the glass in the display cabinet.
As the story ends, Ishmael enters Goddards home and stabs him to
death with every ounce of strength left in his own dying body. He commits yet another murder,
but this killing actually marks his redemption. Cindy recognizes this when she sees a trucks
incoming headlights cast a light on the dying Ishmael in the living room.
Grown-ups would say that its just the headlights from the little
truck that comes fast up the driveway.But Cindy knows better.
It is a moment of pure grace, the light like the mythical aura of
angels that have come to fetch the former sinner Ishmael to heaven. Therefore, the story
challenges another paradigm: that hardened killers cant change and reform.
As
you can see, the story challenges many commonly held worldviews. The worldview or the paradigm
of the story itself is that anyone is capable of redemption, irrespective of who they are and
where they have been. I subscribed to this paradigm before beginning the story, with one caveat.
I thought it is particularly difficult to reform those who commit violent crimes against women;
however Ishmaels redemptive arc helped me reconsider that aspect of my
worldview.
No comments:
Post a Comment