Dear Exile

by Hilary Liftin

  Time here is very strange. Since nothing is routine, I notice everything and days seem incredibly long. Also the fact that it’s summer here and it’s November makes it feel like time hasn’t passed into winter yet. I’m beginning to feel generally disoriented. Often, when I’m hitching a ride in the back of a truck, children will drop everything to start chasing after me yelling, “Mzungu, mzungu!” They might mean a very derogatory “honky!” or simply “white person!” or even “wondrous person!” depending on how you choose to translatethe word. Sometimes, it’s embarrassing to be called that and to be such a spectacle all the time. Sometimes, it’s funny that they want to see me so badly, and I want to smile and wave at the cute little girl chasing us in bare feet. Sometimes, though, the child will run so hard and so long, it feels like desperation—rich, white tourist, help me. Then it seems like she’s running on her last hope, and my stomach drops. We’re both studying Kiswahili intently because it seems like our only way to begin to understand what’s happening around here.

  A few things I need to know about you:

  Have you started your new cyberjob?

  What’s going on with Josh “Do-Me-but-Don’t-Do-Me” Stack?

  Where do you live?

  How much do you miss me?

  I miss you a lot.

  Kate

  P.S. Hey Hil, Kate has hurried off on one of her urgent trips to the choo. She has soiled her shorts on no fewer than four separate occasions. At first it was funny, but now I think she just wants attention. I am ignoring her because I don’t want to reinforce this kind of behavior. My bowels, on the other hand, are holding firm. I’m not bragging, it’s just the truth.

  Yours,

  Dave

  NEW YORK CITY

  December 19

  Dear Kate,

  You mention things like fever trees casually. I have taken note of your rather pathetic plea for letters and can only suggest that you stop describing me as fuzzy, in which case I will put all the other friends of Peace Corps volunteers to shame.

  Rotten meat or no, Kate, oh how you’ve escaped. Don’t think you can get away with it. You’ve got it easy. Look at me. Who will I be now that I’m post-college, post-college boyfriend, post-first job, twenty-six years old, alone in the world, and in need of some income, some home, some company? How in heaven am I going to settle—whatever that is? I’m willing to devote my whole sympathy quotient to your gastronomic nightmares, I’m just asking that you understand that I’m making a life from scratch over here. It’s no cakemix.

  I have obeyed my runes and leapt empty-handed into the void. Much as I try to explain to myself that I am in transition and that everything’s going to turn out just fine, I’m hardly the happy camper we remember. I’m living at my dad’s now. My eyelid has had a twitch ever since I moved in here. It’s a delicate, fluttering twitch that others don’t seem to see, but to me it feels like there’s a bird in my head, beating itself against the window of my eye. So right now I hardly recognize myself. I wake up in a strange apartment. I hide away my bed and all signs of me. I commute out of the city—away from all my friends and the places I know—to work in a sterile office at an ill-defined new job in a big, generic office building on a highway in Westchester. I’m just waiting: waiting to accumulate a foundation of knowledge that will get me the right job; waiting to find my own apartment so I can make noise and be a person; waiting to hail a cab and smile at the person getting out and see that stranger again and again.

  Most of all right now, I can’t wait to live alone. The finances of buying an apartment are impossible, but I’m willing to make adjustments. No long-distance service, for example, no food on weekdays, drugstore makeup, factory-second panty hose, found art. I can’t wait to acquire “homeowner’s insurance.” I want to have my stereo going when I fall asleep. I want all the messages to be for me. I want to bring home strangers and store their body parts in my freezer. I want to polyurethane floors and leave the toilet seat up (Oh wait. I’m a girl.) and throw away all the plastic grocery bags which wouldn’t even accumulate anyway since I don’t shop. I want the shower to be a hundred percent available. I want to have parties and not clean up.

  While I look for an apartment, everything I own is in storage. Of course I never thought it would take this long to land an apartment. When I packed up my belongings in August I was like, Wool? Who needs wool? Now I’m cold all the time and trying to look professional while layering like crazy. Also, my dad and Genevieve’s loft was not designed around the concept of privacy. I know that no matter how good a guest one is, one’s presence is eventually annoying. The only way I can imagine avoiding this is to try to make myself invisible. So I am rarely there, wake up when they do (it’s hard not to), and leave as quickly as possible. I bring home flowers and groceries, and I’ve got all my friends calling an answering service. They didn’t request any of this, but you can be sure I would never feel the need to be so cautious and polite and adult if I were staying with my mother.

  I finally settled the lawsuit with my health club for ten thousand dollars, so I’ll be wallpapering whatever apartment I find with ten-dollar bills. I’m not sure the scar on my brow is worth it.I kept saying to my lawyer, When the mirror fell on me it was like my own face attacked me. I told him it caused great psychological trauma. I explained to him that they should give me enough money so that I end up feeling happy that the mirror fell on me. That’s what compensation for incompetence is about. My lawyer didn’t seem very excited by any of it. But ten thousand dollars definitely puts a spring in my step. It also allows me to have some fun, for a change.

  So I came back to your letters from my spontaneous jaunt across the United States of America. Imagine this: not until the day we went to pick up a friend’s manual-transmission car did Josh Stack see fit to inform me that he’d never driven a stick shift before. And I’d definitely never driven a stick shift. Turned out Stack and I were both sort of passenger types who yearned to be driver types, so we were mutually encouraging and supportive the whole time, cheering each other on when shifting from first gear to second, and so on.

  Have you ever walked around the Grand Canyon? Stack took issue with the Canyon Rules, which forbade us trying to make it down and back in one day because we might die. According to Stack, the rangers didn’t want us to die because it might mean extra work for them. Anyone else might have been distracted from this paranoid hypothesis by, well, the Wonder of the World. Not Josh. Me, I found the canyon to be very big. When something’s that big, it’s hard to know if it’s real. I read the brochure over and over again, trying to believe that where we were standing had once been sea level, but was forced to conclude that Josh was right, it was a scam. Seriously, the drive out of the canyon at dusk was more moving than the canyon itself. It was only then, in the so-called gloaming, that the awe settled. Stack couldn’t stop applauding the sunset. I listened to him appreciate the sun, and the West, and our driving abilities, all the way from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, where we finally found a tape of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the sound track of which we’d been singing since the Hoover Dam. America may not have elephants, but it has more slot machines than you know.

  Stack, since you asked, is something of a tease, if sharing motel beds across the country can accurately measure any points of character. We crawl into these beds to spoon, and when we do that I get a little “why not?” quiver, and sometimes I know he’s got a quiver of his own, but in the morning it feels like a not-unpleasant dream. Sleeping in hotel beds, dreaming that I have a real fellow and a real home. In daylight, we get along splendidly. But I’m not convinced that we should do whatever it might be that friends do to become lovers. Stack is mostly just a skirt chaser. He talks about wanting a girl, or girls, and snuggles up to cute hipsters at parties, but never really follows through. Also, he sort of acts like an overgrown kid, bounding around in his overalls, safety glasses, and Joker grin. Delia says we’re Sam and Diane. Harry and Sally. It’s funny, even my brother said
that I should go out with Stack. In fact, almost everyone tells me to date Stack. Maybe it’s because he is Mr.Charisma, or because we banter so enthusiastically, or because he’s the only friend with whom I’m physically affectionate. Having a thing with him would be entertaining, but I think you’d nix it, because you wouldn’t be able to imagine it growing up into something substantive. Why play with a Slinky when you can read a book?

  I want to address the fact that I will write these letters to you alone. I fully expect Dave to read them, but I want you to feel like an individual, especially now that you’re married and all. Dave is really only good for scatological updates anyway. And I love that cow story, but, Kate, I think you should know that it’s hard for a cow to be a “he.” And before you shat your shorts did you say to Dave, Will you still love me if I shit in my shorts? When are you done with training and where will you go from there?

  I don’t have the list of things you need to know, but haven’t I covered everything? I think you asked where I’m living but now I’ve told you. Oh, and how much do I miss you? Let me count the ways: I miss you like the plague; I miss you because you understand everything I say and because for all I know when I say I see blue everyone else might see green but I’m pretty sure you see blue; I miss you because when you get back you’re going to be really different and dirty; I miss you because you’re not coming to my Christmas party; I miss you because you’re speaking Kiswahili and I can’t and I’m afraid you’ll never come home; I miss you as often as I check my voice mail (which is like every minute); I miss you because I don’t trust anyone else’s sanity (except maybe my brother’s); I miss you more than I miss all my stored belongings and with a force that is just a tiny bit less than my desire to find a lifetime companion; I miss you because the park is covered in snow and I haven’t been there yet; I miss you because I think you love me unconditionally and I definitely do you. This turned into a love letter. Is that so wrong?

  Goodbye, my dirty friend, goodbye,

  H

  SOMEWHERE ON THE COAST

  December 29

  Happy holidays Hilary!

  First of all, it was not a pathetic plea for mail, thank you very much, it was an objective presentation of a few facts and figures regarding my correspondence intake in relation to those around me. If you are telling me these will be Pity Letters, you can send them elsewhere. (I’ll just pretend I can read the newspaper.) I also want to say, on the record, that I don’t think it’s normal for a man and a woman who are not relatives and like each other very much to sleep cuddled up together without ever addressing the issue of sex. Conclusion: Stack’s gay. Call me a cynic.

  So, training’s over! After repeated hints from Mama Kamau that the previous volunteer had given her an expensive goodbye gift, we got her a watch from Nairobi, where one can buy anything. We had some last rancid goat, some last chuckles together over Hulk Hogan, and said our tutaonanans. I have to say, my Kiswahili is somewhat impressive (to me anyway). Just show me some cattle to compliment or someone to greet, and I’m all over that. (On the other hand, I did call Dave “maziwa” (milk) instead of “wazimu” (crazy) when joking with a Mama on a matatu yesterday. And I told a man at market that I didn’t want to buy anything I was “just swimming, thank you.” Okay, so maybe I have a little bit of fine-tuning to do.) In my Final Evaluation, by the way, my teacher told me I’m adjusting well to life here. What she doesn’t know is that I didn’t change clothes, do laundry, or eat much in the States either. In any case, now it’s on to Real Life in Kenya, with Dave and me as the only wazungu around, yippee!

  We’re moving to Ramisi, a small village on the south coast. We’re lucky because most people there use Kiswahili, or another very similar language, as their mother tongue—untrue everywhere else in Kenya. This means we have a prayer of understanding what is going on without having to ask people to switch from their tribal language to Kiswahili.

  There are monkeys, mangoes, and some coconut palms in Ramisi. There’s even a river where we joined some children in throwing rocks to antagonize the crocodiles (yes, from a safe distance). The village is on the compound of a broken-down old sugar plantation and factory. It’s strewn with big, rusted freight cars and broken gears with tall grass growing around and through the parts. The people live in the rows of cement housing that the factory workers abandoned, and we will too. Many of the “houses” have caved-in roofs or walls, and because it’s also very hot and dry, without much greenery, the whole place looks a little like a bombed-out, postwar town. It’s not that kind of Hollywood poverty where people live close to the earth in a pure, religious-looking way. It’s just ugly and depressing. We’re planning on buying a filter since our water, which comes from a borehole behind the school, is brownish, oily, and has sediment floating in it.

  What will be our house is currently occupied by a weird Peace Corps volunteer. She has been cohabiting with bat and rat shit, dead lizards, and fist-sized spiders with red legs. However, the place has a toilet (although it doesn’t flush), a kitchen (that just means a room with a counter since we need to bring in the water and cook over a fire), and a wash-yourself-here room (an empty room with a drain in the floor). We might also have occasional electricity for the socket in the living room.

  All we know about the secondary school is that there are eight classes of about fifty boys and girls each. There are eleven teachers, all Kenyan of course. Dave and I will join as the school’s only English teachers, and I’ll get the form fours and the form ones—the seniors and the freshmen. Dave gets the rest. Because of the schedule here, that means Dave and I will each teach twenty-eight hours a week—Peace Corps recommends we teach no more than twenty (which is full-time because of all the curriculum planning and paper marking), but we’re both eager, so we decided to go for it.

  Did you have your holiday party? For our Christmas, we came out here to the coast, near our future home, with two other volunteers to explore. We spent the morning of the 25th wading in the warm, sandy puddles of the Indian Ocean, avoiding sea urchins. There were millions of little crabs on the sand with one big red claw each. For a nearsighted person like me, it was like walking in an enormous field of red dandelions. We wandered back to the town for passion juice (which you would love even though it is fruit and therefore a relative of a vegetable). When, out of nowhere, it started to pour, we sat on a stoop and watched the chickens run around in the rain. A man waiting under the same thatching was curious about us and invited us to visit his house. His village was at the end of a winding path through the palms. We came into a clearing where the red dirt was immaculately swept, the gardens looked healthy, and the mud walls of the huts looked strong and smooth. After we chatted for a while, he asked one of his sons to climb a very high palm and bring down some coconuts for us. Then he macheted the tops off, and we drank so much coconut water we thought we could never be thirsty again. Did you know young coconut meat is like custard? As we ate it with spoons made from the shell, Ali asked us if it wasn’t our Christmas today? He said we, and all people, may have different skin and different names for God, but we are all of one blood, we are all brothers and sisters, and with these coconuts, he wished us Good Christmas. I wish the same to you, but without the coconuts.

  Love,

  Kate

  P.S. We developed the enclosed pictures in Nairobi, and David says to tell you that Mama Kamau’s cow is actually much bigger than she looks in the picture. My little matador.

  NEW YORK CITY

  December 29

  Dear Kate, who is so far away,

  My Christmas party wished you were there. My homemade Pillsbury sugar cookies with frosting imitating Mondrian, Pollock, and Magritte wished you were there. Stack, who blew me off for baking said cookies and is only nominally forgiven, wished you were there. The mistletoe wished you and Dave were below it.

  The fifty or so guests, who were well behaved in my mother’s apartment, and who included but were not limited to my brother and Emily, Delia, Rory, Dave Schi
sgall, Amy, Greg, Susan Choi, Sam (from work), Jon and the rest, wished you were there. The night, which had an early Christmas glow, the evening sun turning all the Upper West Side windows golden, the night was thinking, now where has Kate got to? The spiced brandy and the usual foodstuffs, but especially the broccoli, were sorry you couldn’t make it.

  And I—as I turned in half circles and quarter circles, receiving bottles and pouring wine and brewing brandy—even though I knew you would have come as a favor to me, had fun in spite of yourself, and left on the early side, I was sending you a first-class psychic bundle of fresh-roasted chicken, peanut butter cups and store-bought eggnog, which I hope arrived in good condition. There wasn’t much spare room for love in that bundle, so please find it here enclosed.

  Merry Christmas,

  Hilary, who wishes you’d been there

  P a r t T w o

  J a n u a r y - M a y

  RAMISI

  January 10

  Hello small Hil,

  I have been repairing a mosquito net for you. It is very good that you sent me a letter. It took a while for it to get here because of my move to Ramisi. This business of having to write letters to keep up friendships definitely separates the wheat from the chaff. I’ve been getting few letters—you are wheat. (That would be the good part?)

  Oh, January 10th, you think, Kate and Dave have probably started their teaching! And oh how we’ve started. Oh, how. I am currently sitting in a virtually empty staff room in a virtually empty school. Wind is blowing through the palm trees. It’s flapping the paper Dave has put over the screen to keep off some of the sun. There is one other teacher sitting in the room with us. He’s resting back in his chair, looking at the wall, occasionally brushing a fly away from his head. David and I have been sitting in this staff room now for a total of twenty-seven hours over the last three days. Waiting for school to start. It hasn’t yet, although we’d been told it would start two days ago. We are sitting, looking at walls. Sweating. Basically melting away. It’s sooo hot here, Hilary. I mean, HOT.