by Paul Theroux
I cruised in my car until the bats flew off, and then went back to Rashida’s.
“She has gone out,” a woman said from the depths of the hut.
Rashida always called this brown, serious woman “auntie,” and I had surprised her in her old faded wraparound.
“Did she go alone?”
“No. With an Indian.”
I was not jealous. I was cross with myself for having sworn that I was not going to see her tonight and then as a last resort dropping by, assuming she would be waiting. Why should she wait for me? I knew there was an Indian she liked—because he had a car and he took her dancing. He gave her lengths of printed cotton cloth from his shop, which she had made into dresses. Did he know I gave her fancy underwear?
It was very dark in Wandegeya, and it was quieter now that the bats had taken off. It was too late to go to the movies, too early to go home. I could have gone to the Hindoo Lodge but tonight I did not want to eat dinner alone. I saw some Africans peering through the back window of a shop, hanging on to the shutters and the bars, where inside an Indian family was watching I Love Lucy.
In this nighttime neighborhood anyone with electricity was conspicuous. You saw them through their windows because it was too hot for them to close their shutters. And when your eyes became accustomed to the darkness you could see the Africans by the roadside, standing or sitting, waiting for buses, roasting ears of corn, stirring peanut stew, staring back at you.
I hated driving at night, because of these wandering Africans on the road, and the cyclists and the dogs. Big dumb cows browsed by the roadside too. I sat in my car in the black night near Rashida’s hut, not thinking of her, but only of the earth tremor and the way my ceiling had twisted and seemed to fall, and all those burglar alarms that had made my heart pound.
When there was nowhere to go and nothing to do in Kampala there was always the Staff Club. It was just a room in an old building that stood on its own under a drooping gum tree. It had been chosen for its isolation, because of the noise. There was music—a phonograph beside the bar. And there were always shouts, but friendly ones. The members felt happy and heroic for being misfits.
I saw some bright drunken faces under the lights, through the open windows. Three cars were parked in the long grass. As soon as I shut my engine off I heard the voices—not angry, just loud and boozy, someone contradicting someone else.
It was Crowbridge, shouting, but he stopped when I entered.
“Look who’s here, our American friend, Bwana Parent,” Crowbridge said.
“So you all survived the earthquake,” I said.
There was a silence. Crowbridge said, “We’re not talking about that. We’re sick of hearing about it. If you want to talk about it you can bugger off right now, bwana.”
“You’re interrupting something, Andy,” Potter said.
Crowbridge went on with his story.
I knew it was about a man named Hassett, who had left Uganda at Independence, because Crowbridge said—he was speaking to Potter—“You remember his hangovers? He said if he could sleep till noon he’d be all right, but if someone woke him at eleven he’d suffer all day. Anyway, that bitch from Kololo we used to call the Marchioness of Gush was after him something chronic. She rang him up at half-past ten one morning. He had really tied one on the night before. He was still half full of alcohol. He got to the phone somehow and shouted into it, ‘I do not take personal calls at my residence before noon, now please get off the line!’ Bangs down the receiver.”
Mungai and Okello laughed, thinking the story was over, but Crowbridge took no notice of them.
“A few days later he was going past the post office. You know how he was—the way all drunks are—different every hour of the day. At five o’clock he was positively friendly. There’s the Marchioness up ahead with her two daughters, and they’re all tits and teeth. Hassett says, ‘Why hello there. I didn’t realize that you had such a lovely family. Give me a ring sometime—I’m usually at home in the morning.’ ”
This time no one laughed. Potter yawned into his hand. Mungai and Okello looked apprehensive. Crowbridge went on drinking. He didn’t seem to mind that his story had fallen flat. They were always telling stories about people who weren’t there. As soon as you left they talked about you—what you had just said, or the way you looked, or how much you had drunk.
An African named Kwasanja was at the far end of the bar with Godby’s wife—Godby nowhere in sight—talking to her in an aggrieved way.
“I didn’t mind it when they called me black,” he said. “But when they called me colored I hated it. I said to my landlady, ‘What do you mean colored? What color, eh?’ She did not know what to say. She was just some bloody working-class woman.”
Godby’s wife said without any feeling, “I’m a bloody working-class woman.” Then she turned to me and said, “You haven’t paid your bar bill.”
She did not like me much. A year before, sitting together at the Staff Club—we were alone—I said, “Let’s lock up this place and go to my house for a drink.” She knew what I meant. But when I made love to her she howled, “Graham! Graham! Graham!” and I stopped, withdrew, couldn’t go on. She punched me and began to cry with frustration, but what could I do?
Graham was her husband, a junior lecturer in the Geography Department.
Her name was Alma. She always wore big loose dresses, even though she was rather small. She chain-smoked, sitting hunched at the bar holding her cigarette like a monkey clutching a nut. I liked her indifference to things, the way she simply came along when I said, “Let’s go.” I had been shocked to hear her say her husband’s name—surprised when she raised her voice. She sometimes brought her little baby to the Staff Club, and he sat drooling in a stroller while she drank. She had a degree in mathematics but was refused a job in the Math Department because the head of it, an old-timer named Tarpey, said he didn’t want a bloody woman on the staff. So Alma did the bar accounts, adding up the chits we signed.
“It’s about time you settled your bill.”
“I’ve been away,” I said. “England, actually.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re not due for leave for another year.”
“I wasn’t on leave. I was on vacation.”
“What a waste of money,” Alma said. “You could’ve gone to Mombasa.”
“Where’s that poppsie of yours, Andrew?” Crowbridge said.
“I don’t have a poppsie.”
“That Nubian,” he said.
“She’s not a fucking Nubian,” I said.
Potter said, “I think the really attractive ones are the Batoro. Fort Portal is full of crumpet.”
“And Kabale as well,” Kwasanja said. He was from Kabale.
They began one of the standard Staff Club discussions: which African women were the prettiest.
“Who’s barman?” I said. “I’d like a beer.”
Crowbridge stepped behind the bar and took a bottle of Indian Pale Ale out of the vibrating refrigerator.
“And a double gin for me,” Okello said.
Pouring the second tot, Crowbridge held the almost empty bottle up for all to see, showing us that there was less than a tot swilling at the bottom.
“Barman’s tot,” he said, and added it to his glass.
“We should have real music,” Potter said. “We should have food. We could do sandwiches. We could do a five-bob lunch.”
“Bring it up at the next meeting,” Alma said.
“I am buying you one bottle of beer,” Okello said, moving to the stool next to Alma’s and placing the bottle in front of her.
“Thanks very much, but you’re not getting anything from me,” Alma said. She was pleased with herself and sucked smoke out of her pinched cigarette.
Did she remember howling Graham! Graham! Poor Godby, everyone fucked his wife, while he was home looking after their baby. I had the impression that after all this drinking and screwing, the Godbys would go back to England an
d live a quiet little life in a place like Walton-on-Thames, as though nothing had happened.
People lived in a wild and reckless way here, but they seldom got hurt. Africa had a reputation for danger, but the worst of it was the boredom, the long nights, the yearning for something else, the stories I had heard before. Yet there was always Mombasa.
Crowbridge said, “I have to go. Who wants to be barman? Potter?”
“I will do it,” Okello said, as Potter shrugged.
“Mind you sign the chits,” Crowbridge said. “Don’t make a pig’s breakfast of it.” And he left. I had not realized how drunk he was until I heard him start his car, and grind his gears, and go humping and bumping through the grass.
“You were in Nyasaland, Andrew, weren’t you?” asked Potter, and without waiting for a reply, went on, “There’s masses of patchouli there. The department needs some.” He was in the Botany Department. “Know anyone there who’d send me some?”
I tried to think of someone. There was not a soul. I did not write to anyone there, I could hardly remember their names. The Americans were gone. The Africans I knew could barely write. I had left them all behind. I seemed to be going from world to world.
“There must be someone,” I said, knowing there wasn’t.
Kwasanja was singing to a record,
Malaika
Nakupenda malaika
Namini fa nyenye …
Then he signed his chits and left—another drunken car, bumping through the grass.
Okello poured himself a drink from the newly opened bottle of gin. In the same motion he raised the bottle to his mouth and took a long swig, his Adam’s apple pounding.
“Christ on a bike!” Potter cried.
“Barman’s tot,” Okello said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You’re signing for that, Festus!”
It was the first time I had ever heard Okello’s Christian name.
Mungai said, “When I was in London they did worse things than that.”
“This club is losing money,” Potter said. “Ask Alma. She does the books. Is it funny, Alma?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I’m going home.”
“And me, I am going,” Okello said, following her through the door, to the darkness and damp grass.
Mungai said, “Over Christmas she wanted me to poke her. We went to Wireless Hill in my car. I tried, but I couldn’t!”
“That’s no way to talk about Alma Godby,” Potter said. “You’d better be careful, mate.”
“I am drunk,” Mungai said. He was smiling, perhaps thinking of Alma in his car on Wireless Hill.
“That’s no bloody excuse.”
“I am going home,” Mungai said, and staggered out.
“The bastard didn’t sign his last chit,” Potter said.
The song Malaika stopped. There was silence.
“Over Christmas she wanted me to poke her,’ ” Potter said angrily, mimicking Mungai. “What’s wrong with these people?”
He began tidying the bar, putting bottles away, banging them down. I did not share his anger. I too had tried to poke Alma Godby.
“How did you know Okello’s name is Festus?”
“He was a student of mine,” Potter said. “They’re all former students. Kwasanja read economics and did a degree in political science at LSE. Mungai was one of Peter’s students. He’s a bright chap. He drinks too much and he talks too much, but then,” he smiled, “so do we all.”
I took another beer out of the refrigerator, and opened it, and signed for it.
Potter was absorbed in the Argus. I tried to imagine what sort of students Okello and Kwasanja had been. Probably very hardworking and optimistic, preparing themselves for Uganda’s independence and following the advice of their young teachers, Crowbridge and Potter. Now they were all drunks, taking turns with Alma Godby.
“Quiet tonight,” Potter said, looking up from the paper.
“Where is everyone?”
“There’s a jazz night in town,” he said. “At that bar near the museum.”
“What’s a jazz night?”
“Loud music and cheap wine,” Potter said. “Gramophone records. Waste of time, if you ask me.”
He began filling his pipe, pushing tobacco in with his thumb. Then he paused, stared into space for a minute, and smiled.
“This is much cozier,” he said.
He arranged his things on the bar counter, his tobacco and pipe, his matches, his knife, his tamper, newspaper, glass of gin, bottle of tonic; he was like a man working at a desk, becoming very orderly, the way some drunks in the club did.
I said nothing, only watched, remembering the earth tremor.
“Oh, yes. Festus was a very bright chap,” he said. “Years ago.”
He wanted to reminisce. He wasn’t even thirty-five, and he was looking backwards.
I said, “Which bar near the museum?”
“Waste of time,” he said. “Have a drink, Andy.”
“I’ve got one, thanks.”
I don’t want to spend another night in this place, I thought.
Potter said, “Did you see Festus following Alma out the door?” He smacked his lips. “I can see him driving his hand smartly up her jumper.”
Nor did I want to ponder that.
“I think I’ll go down to the jazz club,” I said.
Potter frowned. “I might as well go with you.”
We went together in my car. The bar didn’t have a name, but it was easy to spot—all the cars, all the music and noise. It was Dixieland music, and the bar looked like a little roadhouse anywhere in the world. We parked under a thorn tree and pushed through the crowd on the veranda—they were all talking about the earth tremor, what it had felt like, what they had thought it was. They had the tipsy hysteria of survivors, congratulating themselves that they were still alive.
At the bar Potter said, “Can’t even get a bloody drink.”
I saw a very pretty blonde, about twenty or so, talking to a big bald man on a settee against a wall. The man got up and went into the other room. I said to myself, Oh well.
I went over and sat down next to the blonde. She smiled at me, but more in surprise than in welcome.
“Hello,” I said, and just saying that single word convinced me that I was drunk. “How about that earthquake—amazing huh?”
She sighed. She said with feeling, “It frightened me rigid. Everyone thinks it was so funny. I hated it.”
I wanted her to say more—it was what I wanted to hear. To encourage her I said, “Hey, I was scared shitless.”
“You’re an American,” she said.
“How did you know that?”
She smiled again, and then laughed softly.
I said, “Are you with anyone tonight?”
“Yes. He’s just gone to the loo.”
I said, “Then listen carefully. Meet me on the steps of the library at six-thirty tomorrow. Okay?”
She nodded, because the big bald man was approaching with a look of alertness on his face and that same tension was visible on his scalp, too. I excused myself and ducked out, amazed at my boldness.
On the way back, Potter said, “What did I tell you? Waste of time.”
7.
I saw her through a break in the hedge, and I lingered because I was so relieved. She was sitting on the low steps of the library, smoking a cigarette. She did not have the thoughtful and vexed expression of a person waiting for a stranger, but rather she looked contented, with light on her face, the last bright sunshine before the sun dropped beneath the trees. In that moment before we met I had the irrational thought that we knew each other and were friends. Of course it wasn’t true. It was a good feeling though—happiness and flickering hope. She was smiling.
She stood up and stamped on her cigarette when she saw me crossing the road. With the sun in her hair and in her summer dress she was very pretty. She was nearly as tall as me. She looked confident, and it was only when she spok
e that I realized she was shy—but shy in an English way, watchful and formal and a little hesitant.
“Shall we get a drink somewhere?” I had asked her, trying not to stare at her.
And she was saying, Oh, yes—That’s fine—Wherever you say.
I said, “What about the Veranda?”
It was a bar that adjoined the Speke Hotel.
“Isn’t that expensive?” she said, and smiled again.
I was touched, because it wasn’t expensive at all, but just another bar in a town that was full of them.
“You’re a student,” I said. Students were always thinking about money and economizing in bewildering ways.
“Yes. I’m getting a Dip Ed.”
“And what are you going to do with it?”
“Go into the bush and teach,” she said, with such eager independence that I felt excluded and already a bit abandoned.
At the Veranda we found a table under the trees, which had strings of lights in their branches. They were flame trees, and a blossom plopped on the table as soon as we sat down.
“Maybe I should wear it in my hair,” she said, and picked it up and fixed it over her ear. She looked exotic.
Then she glanced into her compact mirror and frowned. “God, I look stupid!” She clawed it out of her hair.
The waiter brought us our drinks. She sipped hers and seemed detached and appreciative. I guzzled mine out of nervousness and said, “I didn’t think you’d be there.”
“I didn’t think I would either,” she said. “I’m fussy about being picked up.”
“You must be. I mean”—I was still guzzling—“you let me pick you up.”
“I had other plans but they fell through,” she said.
There was not the trace of a smile on her lips.
“Really?” I said. “That bald guy? Was he busy?”
“He’s actually very nice. He’s an anthropologist, studying the Bwamba. He’s frightfully het up about their circumcision ceremonies.”
