by Ishmael Beah
She took off her clothes and went to the shower and turned on the water. When the temperature was right, she stepped in. She stood there for a while, luxuriating in the steady pulsing of warmth down her back, a seeming miracle after her ocean and river baths. She stayed in longer than she needed to but got out sooner than she wanted to, afraid of using up all the hot water. Most good things, she knew, come to an end.
She dressed in denim shorts and a white tank top and went into the hallway. At Mahawa’s door she heard the sound of the shower running and music playing, something melancholy in a language she didn’t recognize. She waited a bit, but when neither water nor music came to an end, she decided to follow her nose to breakfast.
It took her out onto the veranda, where daylight revealed a stunning view, and a table so elaborately set with cutlery and crystal and china that she nearly ran back inside. There were breads and meats and jams and fruits of all kinds, some of which she had never laid eyes on before. Just as she was debating whether to retrace her steps, she heard Mahawa behind her.
“Good morning, my party friend. Come, let’s eat, and then hit the road. I am so excited!” She took Khoudiemata’s hand and pulled her to the table.
Khoudi filled her plate and began to eat. “I am surprised to find you in such a good mood,” she commented.
“Why?” Mahawa looked up from her tea with an expectant face.
“The music you were listening to in the shower was sort of depressing.” Khoudi bit into a slice of buttered bread with jam.
“Ah, I see!” said Mahawa. “That was Cesária Évora. I don’t find her depressing. I just love the longing in her voice.” She paused, then continued with her usual mischief: “But next time I will play one of those cheesy R&B songs and maybe you’ll come join me.”
She met Khoudi’s reproving look with a defiant one of her own. “I am not going to stop until I see you casting off your shell and letting yourself blossom into the fantastic woman you are.”
“Fair enough.” Khoudi didn’t want to let the conversation continue any further in this direction, though part of her wanted to ask when this blossoming into a fantastic woman was likely to be completed. To her relief, Mahawa concentrated on her breakfast, and they ate in silence, enjoying the breeze and the birds that sang, celebrating the day.
* * *
—
After breakfast they went out to the driveway, where Mahawa’s car, a shiny black Jeep with an open top, sat, its engine humming as servants stood to either side, holding open the doors for them. Khoudiemata climbed into the passenger seat, but not before she took a quick look in the back. Sure enough, her bags were there, packed by unseen hands. She relaxed, making a vow then and there to try to enjoy this adventure as much as possible. What did she have to lose? If it never happened again, so be it.
Before long, they were cruising along the ocean, music blaring from the car and Mahawa dancing in her seat as she sang along. Gradually Khoudiemata joined in, and before long she too was shimmying in her seat, her face against the wind. She stopped only when Mahawa slowed down at the approach of a village. Young people rushed the car, hawking bread, cold water, cigarettes, anything they had managed to lay their hands on that someone else might want. Looking at their faces, Khoudi pictured those of her little family. They had done this sort of hustling before they got better at living at the edges of society. She tried to get a sense of which of them were connected to each other, the way she, Elimane, Kpindi, Ndevui, and Namsa were. But then they were past it, and Mahawa stepped on the gas, and Khoudi let the image go and joined in singing again, until the next town.
After about an hour and a half, they left the tar road for a red dirt one, the tires squealing their disagreement. “Here we come!” said Mahawa. Twisting and turning, the road led them down to where the ocean kissed a blanket of the whitest sand Khoudiemata had ever seen. Even Mahawa, who had been here before, stopped singing and turned off the music. They listened to the breeze that cascaded through the trees like a waterfall, and looked out at the glistening blue water.
At last Khoudi found her voice. “We could just sit here in the car for days, and I would be fulfilled.” They sat there for some minutes more, until Mahawa broke the trance by grabbing her handbag and passing Khoudiemata hers. There was already a young fellow by the car waiting to carry their bags.
“The young masters are waiting for you at the restaurant,” he announced. “They instructed me to take your bags to the rooms.”
Mahawa laughed. “So they are calling themselves masters already.” But instead of guiding her straight to the restaurant, Mahawa took Khoudiemata on a detour to the beach. She bent down to remove her shoes and indicated that Khoudiemata should do the same so that they could walk along barefoot, relishing the beauty of the place before they joined their companions.
They eventually found Musa and Frederick Cardew-Boston at a table facing the ocean, with several empty beer bottles before them. Frederick Cardew-Boston jumped up. “Well, well, I am pleased that you made it! I wasn’t certain, because my supposed friend here hasn’t answered her phone since last night.” He indicated Mahawa with a chiding glance, but she was deep in a hello kiss with Musa.
Frederick Cardew-Boston pulled out a chair for Khoudi. “I have not presumed to order for you, but I have inquired about the red wine selection, in case you prefer that.”
Mahawa emerged from Musa’s embrace. “Well, look at what you have done, Khoudiemata. You’ve tamed his pomposity. Good for you, young woman!” She snapped her fingers for the waiter.
“I think that he secretly wanted to be a gentleman,” Khoudi said. Frederick Cardew-Boston fidgeted self-consciously under her gaze.
“The young man is trying. I will give him some pointers.” Musa boxed Frederick Cardew-Boston’s arm lightly, until he joined in the laughter, sensing that it was all in good spirit. The sun had chased away every cloud in the sky, and the occasional breeze caressed the surface of the ocean, making it ripple. They ordered more beer, then lunch and another round of beer. They spoke as they drank and ate, slowly, savoring the leisurely pace of the day. Khoudi noticed that none of them, not even Frederick Cardew-Boston, had their phones out, and so there was nothing to interrupt their time together.
After lunch they decided to retire to their rooms, and to meet again for a swim in a couple of hours. Musa and Mahawa went down the hall hand in hand. Khoudi hesitated, uncertain where to go, until Frederick Cardew-Boston dug into his pocket and presented her with a key.
“This is for your room,” he said. Seeing the look of uncertainty on her face, he added, “Your own room. I am so pleased that you came, and that you did not leave your teasing and sarcasm at home. I will see you shortly, Khoudiemata.”
* * *
—
Her suite was on the second floor, supported by the sturdy concrete structure underneath. Upon entering, she looked straight out the windows onto the ocean. The tide was low, and the expanse of sand gleamed against the sky; to one side, a tributary flowed into the sea. There was a veranda right outside, with a hammock-like chair. She opened the windows to invite the sound of the waves inside.
Only then did she look around the suite itself. There was a sort of parlor, and a private bathroom with an abundance of fresh towels. There was a telephone, a television, and vases of cut flowers. Even though she had slept here and there in rich people’s homes during the rainy season, she had never been in a situation to enjoy what they offered without fear of being caught.
She closed the door and locked it. You must never let your guard down, especially in unfamiliar places, she reminded herself—especially in places where life was so soft and gentle, because when things broke there, they tended to break with a shock. She walked toward the bed and fell onto it, overwhelmed. The suite was too spacious for her, and she wondered if she should have come. Then she sat up and looked around again, to take in everything. As she
did, a decision formed in her head: She was going to start enjoying everything that was in the room, in the suite, in the resort.
She got up and went to each of the vases of flowers, smelling them and arranging them so that they maximized the elegance of the room. The one next to her bed had an envelope with a handwritten note leaning against it. She opened it.
I thought you might like these words that I have borrowed from Léopold Sédar Senghor. They are from a poem fittingly called “To a Dark Girl.”
Tu as laissé glisser sur moi
L’amitié d’un rayon de lune.
Et tu m’as souri doucement.
That means:
You let the friendship of moonlight
Glide on me. And you smiled sweetly.
Khoudiemata read and reread the note. It thrilled her that she could make someone feel the way Frederick Cardew-Boston seemed to feel about her. But at the same time, she thought of the little family with melancholy. How she would have loved to ask Elimane about Léopold Sédar Senghor, whom she was aware of as a Senegalese statesman, not as a poet. She was certain Elimane had read him. She resolved to tell them all about her adventures when she returned, and that made her feel better.
She decided to have some time alone on the beach before the others joined her. Standing before the mirror in her new bathing suit, she summoned the courage to go outside. She put on her sunglasses and hoisted her bag on her shoulder, draping over it a panya that she could lie on but also wrap around her waist if she needed it. She helped herself to a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator in the parlor. Then she took a deep breath and opened the door.
The beach was long and beautiful, and it wasn’t difficult to find a secluded spot. She spread her panya on the sand and anchored it at one end with her bag so that the wind couldn’t make a kite of it. Then she lay down and looked up at the sky. She could feel how her skin greeted the sun with pleasure, the warmth bringing out its natural oils. She closed her eyes and, without looking, felt how her long legs, her hands, and her cheekbones glistened under the sun’s caress. She rested her hands on her belly and imagined: If this were her real life all the time, what would she do with it?
An image—a memory?—floated up. A child was running after her mother and father on a beach very much like this one. Then the parents stopped and sat on the sand, admiring her as she turned cartwheels and twirled around, making herself so dizzy that she fell down. She got to her feet and started running circles around them, until the father stood up and began chasing after her, making her shriek with laughter. The scene was so vivid that Khoudiemata gasped and sat up abruptly, looking around to be sure that it wasn’t something that was actually occurring. But there was only a handful of people nearby, all of them either asleep or relaxing on their panyas as she had been.
Her heart was racing, and she could feel herself breathing fast too. She opened the bottle of water and took a sip, but it was impossible for her to regain her previous state of relaxation. Lying down wasn’t going to help. She stood, shook out the panya and wrapped it around her waist, and went for a walk, heading farther away from the resort. She pulled her pensive shadow along with her, and all her fantasies, dreams, and nightmares. All this time she suddenly had on her hands, freed from the need to survive, was uprooting things in her memory. She tried not to chase the images away but to let them float across her mind as she walked, her feet tasting the warm water at the ocean’s edge. Now the man and woman were chasing the little girl along the beach; the girl giggled and ran ahead, and they followed, laughing too. It pleased her to imagine that she might have had such a life, a family that seemed happy in these glimpses.
Her meanderings had taken her to a nearby village, full of crumbling two-story wooden houses in the colonial style. Elderly people sat out on the verandas that wrapped every home, in rickety chairs and hammocks. Clusters of young people sat around a few kiosks that lined the red dirt road, listening to music that they cranked as loud on their phones as it could go. A child darted in and out of the ruins of an abandoned home, shouting, “You can’t catch me!” with a couple of her playmates in pursuit.
Khoudiemata looked at her phone and realized that she had been walking for almost an hour. She turned around and retraced her steps, back to the resort, back to the present.
“As they say, great minds think alike. Or in this case, a great mind influences a curious one.” At the sound of a familiar voice, she looked up. Frederick Cardew-Boston was standing in her path. He was wearing shorts and running shoes and was sweating, his muscular chest heaving. He mopped his face and neck with the shirt he held in his hand, then put it on.
“I read that somewhere recently,” he said, “and it struck me so much that I memorized it. I thought now was the right time to use it.” She tried to suppress a laugh at the idea of him rehearsing sentences to say to her.
“I couldn’t stay in my room in such a beautiful place, on such a beautiful day, especially knowing the rains will come soon enough.” Khoudi watched as he tried to avoid looking at her body. She wanted to readjust her panya, which was coming loose, but didn’t want to risk drawing even more attention to herself. She reminded herself that this was surely not the first time he had seen a woman’s body.
She remembered the flowers in her room, and the note, and she thanked him. “I did not know Senghor was a poet. I had only known of him as a politician.” She was pensive for a moment. “Can you imagine how different the world might be if all our politicians were poets?”
Frederick Cardew-Boston looked relieved to have something to talk about. Since meeting her, he told her, he had started to search out books beyond the ones in his father’s library, especially seeking out African writers.
There was something else he wanted to tell her. He had another name, a name his grandmother had chosen for him before his father had chosen Frederick Cardew-Boston. It had been included on his birth certificate as his middle name, but since then, his father had included only the initial, S, in his passports and other official documents. Speaking with Khoudi had stirred his curiosity about it.
“So what is it?” she asked.
“Suluku.”
“Suluku,” she repeated. “I like it.”
He had learned that his namesake was a great nineteenth-century ruler from the northern part of their country who, through sheer political cunning, had managed to maintain his independence from the British. He was convinced, he told her, that his grandmother had given him the name in hopes that it would help him to resist accepting anything he did not have the opportunity to question.
Khoudi already knew about Suluku, and much more besides. “Your grandmother sounds like she was an incredible woman,” she said. “She reminds me of Nyarroh—have you ever heard of her?” And she told him what she knew about the female chief who had helped mastermind resistance against the Europeans’ attempt to impose their way of life. “Her name belongs with others who did the same: Bai Bureh, Suluku, Kailondo, Manga Sewa, Momoh Jah, and so on.”
“That’s not how I learned the history!” Frederick Cardew-Boston exclaimed. “I was under the impression that almost all of those men simply surrendered to the British. There was no mention of any resistance—let alone a resistance led by a woman.” He shook his head. “It never made sense to me that such proud and independent people would just give in. But how do you know all this?” he asked.
She recalled Elimane’s history lessons. “Well, there are bits and pieces in books, but it’s hard to find a comprehensive account. I’ve learned much of it from a fellow who calls himself Shadrach the Messiah. He isn’t your usual historian,” she continued, “but he makes sense in his own maddening way.”
“I would love to meet him. Where can I find him?” said Frederick Cardew-Boston. “This fellow should be speaking at the National Library—before Parliament, from the sound of it.”
“Suluku”—she gently tried out the na
me—“forget about Parliament. They are not interested in history, especially the kind of history that makes them think about their own people. And have you ever been to the National Library? There is nothing national there. It is full of books by foreigners, all about us.” She was struck by her own passion as she channeled what she knew from Elimane, and she felt a little guilty at the thought.
“One day I will take you to hear Shadrach for yourself,” she told him.
“Well, maybe you can tell me some bedtime stories from him.” He flirtatiously broke the serious mood, and she playfully swatted him away and he swatted back, accidentally brushing against her breast. They both stepped back in embarrassment.
“Aren’t we supposed to meet Mahawa and Musa around now?” Khoudiemata half hoped he would say, “We’ll go when we are ready.” But instead he agreed that they were late to meet their friends, and they went in search of them.
They found Mahawa and Musa on the beach in front of the resort, sitting on a mat and drinking fruity drinks. The four of them sat there until the sun turned red on the horizon, talking, snacking, and laughing at stories that Mahawa, Musa, and Frederick Cardew-Boston told about their past adventures and mutual acquaintances, with Khoudi punctuating the narrative with witty comments.
Yet carefree as she seemed, she could not help reflecting that none of the people who walked by them would know the kind of life she was used to leading. What a complete nonentity she was, as far as there being any official record of her existence. She thought of the others who shared her fate. What were they doing now? She imagined them on their way home, after corrupting what they could from the day. Or maybe they had just relaxed at home for once, since they had enough money to last them for a while.
“I am getting a little cold.” She stood up and wrapped herself in her panya. “I’m going to go change.” The others waved her off, with plans to meet for dinner on the beach.
