by Ishmael Beah
“You should ask your wineglass, since you are looking at it so intensely,” said Khoudi. That got him to look at her. To her surprise, she saw that he was nervous, and that he was not good at wiping his emotions from his face. He certainly wouldn’t survive in my world, she thought.
“You are different,” he said to her, “the way you think and respond to things. There is this mystery and challenge about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but I want to.” He wiggled his long fingers in the air.
The waiter had arrived to take their orders, and all of the others ordered things from the menu that sounded like gibberish to Khoudi, pronouncing the names of the dishes with a sort of glee. When it was her turn, she asked, “Do you have any food from this country?” She wanted the others to witness what she found so strange.
“I will bring you the native menu.” The waiter finished taking the others’ orders, then rushed away and returned with a battered-looking sheet. Khoudi glanced at it, and ordered potato leaves with barracuda, rice, and sweet plantain.
Noticing the odd looks from the others, she said, “Don’t you find it strange that here we are at a restaurant in our country—a restaurant that is called Noire Point—and when you want a local dish, you are making things difficult? I find it strange!” The table had gone silent, and Khoudiemata thought that perhaps she’d gone too far. Maybe this wasn’t the time or place.
But then Frederick Cardew-Boston jumped in. “I agree with you. We should have the choice of other foods on the menu that are not foreign. If anything, the foreign menu should be the hidden menu, and not the other way around.”
Khoudiemata was not sure if he really meant it or was just coming to her rescue, but she was grateful regardless.
“So how come you never order the local dishes?” Ophelia challenged him. James and Andrew looked amused.
“None of us do,” he said. “I never thought about it. We eat that kind of food at home, but not when we go out.”
Andrew broke in. “It is simply about choice. We choose what we want to eat, and that is that.”
“Maybe that is part of the reason, but it is also that we think that ordering these foreign foods in public makes us sophisticated,” said Bendu, surprising everyone. “That is the truth.”
“I had no idea you thought about such things,” Mahawa teased her. “But Andrew, if it is about choice, why don’t they have all the dishes listed on one menu?”
He scoffed at her without answering, so Mahawa turned to Khoudi. “Well, since Khoudiemata is the catalyst for this vigorous conversation, why don’t we let her have the last word before we move on to other things?”
“I think that if we choose not to eat our own food in public because we don’t think it is as sophisticated as other foods, it means we believe deep down that our heritage is inferior. If we were truly just choosing what we like, that would be another matter. But most times our choices have been made for us, with a systematic brainwash that starts at birth, on the first day of school.” Again, there was silence, mercifully broken by the arrival of the food itself, and the attendant commotion. The conversation turned to where the next parties would be, where people were going for the holidays. Most of the others were going out of the country, almost all of them to Europe—England, France, Germany, Italy.
Khoudiemata noticed that Frederick Cardew-Boston had taken a forkful from her plate without asking, but she stifled the urge to say something about it, feeling that she had already said enough for one night.
“So where will you be going for holiday?” Ophelia asked Khoudi.
“Oh, I am not going anywhere. There is much to do here.” Khoudi spoke as lightly as she could.
“I am not going anywhere either,” said Ophelia. “My parents won’t pay for it, so I will have to probably work if I want to do anything fun this holiday. Perhaps we could find a job together.”
Mahawa broke in. “No, no, Ophelia, don’t steal my friend. Only when I am not around—otherwise I get to decide what we do together.” She was laughing, but it was clear that she was serious. Again, Khoudi restrained herself. She loathed it when others thought they could make decisions on her behalf, but she made herself laugh along with the others.
The drinking continued after the eating, and Khoudi began to worry that even with all the money she had on her, she would not have enough for her share. Others joined them. The heavily made-up young women added more makeup to their faces, right at the table. The music got louder, and so did the conversation.
People got up to dance, boys and girls dancing with each other interchangeably, except Mahawa, who refused to dance with anyone. It became clear why when an impeccably dressed fellow arrived, surprising her with an embrace from behind. Mahawa turned around, glowing, and they went to the dance floor. From their movements, it was clear that their bodies well knew how to follow each other. Then Andrew pulled Ophelia onto the dance floor, and Khoudiemata was left alone.
Frederick Cardew-Boston leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear so that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “I am not going to ask you to dance with me, because I know you are going to respond in a sarcastic way.”
“I don’t need you to dance,” Khoudi said. “I can do very well on my own.” She went to the dance floor and he followed her, weaving around her uncertainly as if hesitating to get closer. Khoudi was thankful, because she was not sure she would be comfortable with the way the others were dancing now, their bodies so close.
When the song ended, she headed back to the table, and again he followed her. She sat down, picked up her water glass and drank, while he watched her.
“There are so many things I want to know about you. And so many things I want to say. First, I am sorry for what I said last time about your name. It is a beautiful name, and I should have said that instead.”
She said nothing.
“I am waiting for you to jab back at me with some sharp comment,” he said.
“I will spare you for the night, but don’t push your luck. You are on quicksand.”
He laughed. “You know what my mission is for the night?” A vein in his forehead had begun to pulse, and again, Khoudi found herself thinking involuntarily of Elimane.
“Why does it have to be a mission?” she said. “You are going to tell me, whether I want to hear it or not.”
“Precisely. I am going to surprise you and make you laugh, and I will tell you why after.” He left the table abruptly, and Khoudi’s eyes followed him. It was easy to spot him, as the restaurant had now been completely converted to a dance hall, the tables and chairs pushed aside, and he was the only one dressed all in white. She spotted him by the DJ’s booth, saying something in the DJ’s ears. Then an Afro Trap song came on, and he took to the center of the dance floor. Khoudi had thought to herself that a boy whose father had given him a name like that likely couldn’t dance, and their first dance had convinced her she was right, but it turned out she was mistaken. Frederick Cardew-Boston was one with every instrument, a natural. He ended his performance to resounding applause, and then he took off his jacket and threw it at Khoudi. She caught it, laughing so hard that her body heaved, and she had to sit down before she fell to the floor. When she looked up, Frederick Cardew-Boston was standing next to her.
“Now I can go home for the night with the image of that beautiful smile.” Immediately her face turned serious.
“Too late,” he told her. “I know it is there, and now that is what I will always see, no matter how tough you look at me.” He mimicked Khoudi’s no-nonsense face.
“Good night,” he called, giving a general wave to the room. Then swiftly he turned and planted a kiss on Khoudi’s cheek before she could avoid it. From across the room, she saw Mahawa winking at her.
Khoudiemata noticed that as soon as Frederick Cardew-Boston departed, the heavily made-up girls got up and rushed out as well. Were they with him? she
wondered. And then, annoyed with herself, pondered why this would be of concern to her anyway.
She decided to take her own leave. She gathered her bag and went to the cashier to pay her share of the meal, but the woman behind the desk told her that the fellow in white had paid for everything. Khoudiemata was relieved but also unsettled, because she didn’t like owing people, especially men.
Outside, she spotted Frederick Cardew-Boston vanishing into his car and closing his door. There was no sign of the girls. Khoudi waited behind a pillar. Was it that she didn’t want to be offered a ride, with all the complications that would entail, or that she didn’t want to discover whether the girls were in the car?
Ophelia emerged at her side, swaying a bit. “I am ready to go home, or rather I should be.” She giggled, and continued. “That was fun, and it was great to have you with us. I know why Mahawa adores you. You are fresh, original, real, and mysteriously unusual in a great way.” She was grasping Khoudi’s arm, both for balance and in intimacy, it seemed. “Would you like to share a taxi?”
Much as the idea appealed to her, Khoudi was nervous. She didn’t want Ophelia to get the remotest idea of where she lived, and she had no phone to call a taxi in the first place. She was searching her mind for a way out of this dilemma when a taxi parked in the lot honked and flashed its lights to get their attention. The driver stepped out.
It was Manga Sewa. He acknowledged Khoudi’s pleasure at seeing him with a playful smirk.
“My friend Ophelia.” Khoudi introduced them. “We will make two stops.”
“Ophelia first, and then my old customer after, yes?” he said. “This way, Ms. Ophelia doesn’t feel worried about a new taxi man late at night. After tonight, though, it will be different.” That got a laugh from Ophelia, who gave him her address.
During the ride, Khoudi learned more about Ophelia. Her father was the government’s logistics manager for imports and exports. He was a strict man who refused to spoil his children, so Ophelia didn’t have a car of her own, or a driver. Her father said she must work to get those things if she wanted them.
“Can you believe that I am still paying him back for a school trip to the UK? He is impossible. I don’t know what he needs with all that money he has.” Ophelia went silent then, and soon Khoudi realized she had fallen asleep. Perhaps it was for the best, because what could Khoudi possibly say? That it was a luxury to be able to complain that way? That she had never met anyone who went to the UK for a school trip? She also found it alarming that Ophelia would simply fall asleep in a taxi, deep in the night with a woman she barely knew and a driver she’d just met. Such naiveté came only from those to whom life has been consistently good.
Manga Sewa had put music on, low, and he was humming along as he wound his way around the curves. Khoudiemata made up her mind that it was too risky to go to 96 Degrees at this hour. This late at night, her presence might draw the attention of a passing driver, and she could not take the chance of being followed. She would have to return to the plane dressed as she was, then leave in the morning before the others woke up. But what if she overslept or one of the boys—or Namsa—woke before her?
She was fretting about all this when the taxi arrived at the entrance of a sprawling property. A gate and a cobblestone driveway made your eyes walk some distance before a hint of the enormous house came into view.
Khoudi woke Ophelia, who looked around herself. “Just here at the gate is fine.” She pulled out her phone, the expensive kind you only had to touch lightly, rather than laboriously pressing down on each key. “Take my number, Khoudiemata, and call me tomorrow.”
Khoudi pretended to riffle through her bag. “I don’t know where my phone is, so let me write it on a piece of paper.” Manga Sewa took paper and a pen from the glove compartment and pushed them into her hands. She passed them to Ophelia, who wrote her number, exited the taxi, and wobbled toward the gate. She pressed some buttons, and an armed guard emerged. Ophelia gave Khoudi and Manga Sewa a parting wave before she disappeared.
Manga Sewa had been driving for a minute or so before Khoudiemata remembered that she had not told him where to go. She realized that he was simply going in the direction of where he had picked her up several hours before. “I am thinking that when I get closer, you can direct me,” he said.
“What makes you think that I live near where you had picked me up?” Khoudi asked, a bit sharply.
“Because when you hailed me, you were not sweating, and your face seemed to be newly consumed by some annoyance. So I put those facts together with some other knowledge that is part of me, and then I calculated my conclusion.” He sounded as if he chose his words to express himself precisely, whether they sounded graceful together or not.
“Do you always calculate your conclusions?” Khoudiemata asked, smiling.
“Yes, with formulas of observation, experience, the unknown, and imagination. Very complex and at the same time simple formulas always variegated with various knowledge that is part of me.” Khoudi wanted to ask him what knowledge was part of him, but once again she restrained herself, recognizing that she might be opening a longer conversation that would be best to hold for another time. It occurred to her that Elimane would like this fellow.
* * *
—
She had Manga Sewa let her off at the corner of a field not far from the airplane. There was a rumor about this field—actually, two rumors. It was perfect for football, with beautiful grass, and the story was that it had once sported fancy goal posts, complete with nets. But legend had it that anyone who played on it would soon be beset by some calamity, because spirits played there. The other story was that it was filled with unexploded mines. Either way, people avoided it. So as soon as the taxi’s brake lights disappeared around the bend, Khoudi headed for the far edge of the field. But as she drew near, she heard motors approaching, and then saw headlights coming her direction. Immediately, she hid in the bushes at the edge of the field.
There were three 4x4s, and they stopped right nearby. Uniformed men jumped out, talking loudly and argumentatively, and they removed makeshift barriers from the back of the vehicles and placed them haphazardly across the road in a way that would force any passing vehicle to stop. Khoudi knew that soldiers were in the habit of doing this in order to ask for money in the name of security.
Soon enough, a vehicle approached. As it halted, the driver rolled down his window and turned on the lights inside the car; he was used to such interruptions. The soldiers pretended to search the vehicle, but stopped as soon as they spotted two cartons of beer on the floor of the backseat.
“Ah, boss man. This one is for us now,” the lead soldier said, as the others flanked the car with false politeness. The driver gave up the beer, undoubtedly knowing it was best not to protest, and the soldiers waved him through. As soon as he was gone, they descended on the beer.
Khoudiemata retreated silently, making her way back to the roundabout where Manga Sewa had dropped her off. It was safer to retreat than to try to pass the checkpoint, alone as she was at this hour.
An idea came to her. She remembered the empty homes the little family had come upon here and there—homes wealthy people built but seldom lived in, as they lived mostly in other parts of the world. The family had been astonished to discover that such homes—and such people—existed. She remembered one in particular that she knew was empty most of the year. They had scouted it during last year’s rainy season and discovered that the guard who was supposed to look after the place did so only during the day, so that people could see him at work. As soon as night fell, he turned the lights on around and inside the house and went home.
Khoudiemata and Elimane had been back to the house since, to check its potential as a refuge for their group in case something happened to the plane, and they had figured out how to break in. It was too exposed and risky to be more than an emergency measure, but one night, for one girl, di
dn’t seem like an unreasonable risk. Besides, for once she wanted to sleep in a real house, in a real bed.
She covered the distance briskly, glad to have a way to warm up in the cool night air, ignoring the dogs that barked at every sound and movement at this hour. When she got to the house, the lights were on, inside and out, as expected, but she could discern no noise of movement. She looked around to be certain that no one was out on the verandas of nearby homes and might be watching her. Then she went to the rear of the building, which was surrounded by a concrete wall with a guava tree growing next to it. She threw some stones over the wall to make sure there was no guard dog. Then she climbed the tree and jumped over the wall, landing in the soft dirt of the yard. In sandals, the impact hurt her feet a bit, but she was not really injured. She made her way to a little toolshed next to the back door. Inside, she found a wire and a screwdriver, with which she easily picked the simple lock. She opened the door carefully, raising it on its fragile hinges so that it didn’t squeak or grate against the floor, and entered.
Inside, the smell of cleanliness overwhelmed her senses for a moment. She had to shake it off to focus. She tried to recall the layout of the house, thankful for the lights that had been left on. The first room she came to was a bathroom. She ran the hot water tap for a few seconds to wash her hands and then her face. It was a miracle, warm water whenever you wanted it. She longed to take a shower, but it seemed too big a risk. She contented herself with squeezing a little toothpaste on her finger, intending to brush her teeth with that. But as soon as she put her finger in her mouth and looked in the mirror above the sink, she had a powerful flashback, of being held up to a similar mirror as a child, so that she could brush her teeth. She rinsed off her finger and closed the tap abruptly, afraid of letting the memory jolt continue.
Next to the bathroom was a bedroom, and she did not press her luck by venturing much farther. She lay down on top of the bed, fully clothed, her bag and shoes within arm’s reach in the event of an emergency departure. She tried to sleep. Her body was exhausted, but her mind began a tug-of-war with it. A house like this brought her at once a sense of familiarity and a sense of strangeness that made it hard to relax.
