The Dust Diaries

by Owen Sheers

  When they finally met (ironically, introduced to each other at a British consulate party, so that just for one night she had both her house and the man she loved together in her life), the attraction was instant. She wore her traditional dress with long amber beads looping around her neck down to her exposed waist. But what the young man had noticed was not the finery of her jewellery or the scent of her perfume but the smoothness of her skin and the darkness of her eyes. They spoke to each other in broken English, each understanding more than they said, and that night, for the first time, she appeared in the window she had watched for so long, finally a part of its small, bright life.

  Shortly after news of their affair reached the Princess’s brother, the couple left the island, and Princess Salome sailed with the merchant back to his home in Hamburg. It was the first time she had left the island other than to travel to Dar es Salaam, and as the ship steamed away from its shores she tried to locate her beloved house and gardens. But all she could see was palms, dipping onto the sands, and dhows, circling inside the reef.

  In Germany they married; the Princess converted to Christianity and they set up home in Hamburg. Life was strange for her. Some people wouldn’t talk to her, and in the winter the bitterness of the cold made her cry. But she loved her husband and the two children she gave him, a girl and a boy. Then, three years after their arrival, her world fell apart when he slipped on some ice avoiding a salesman’s cart and fell under a tram. He was dead before the screech of its brakes had died on the November air.

  ‘She did return once, back in ‘85 I think, before my time.’ The Governor looked away, moved for a moment by his own story. ‘She wanted her children to see her island, and of course this place. She got quite a welcome, but didn’t stay. Apparently by then she spoke Arabic with a German accent, but I’m not sure if I believe that.’

  The table was quiet and even Mr Pruen just nodded sagely rather than offering comment on the Princess’s story. Arthur looked out past the other guests into the unmanned dark. The Governor’s tale had saddened him, and not just out of feeling for the Princess whose house they now sat in. It was a more personal sadness than that; a sadness of empathy as well as sympathy.

  It was Mr Beardsley who broke the silence, nudging his young companion and jokingly admonishing her, ‘You see, Charlotte, that’ll teach you to go running off to strange lands with merchant men!’ He followed the remark with a hearty laugh that sent his head back and his mouth open so Arthur could see the rotten state of his lower teeth.

  Charlotte did not share his amusement, and the gentle nudge in her ribs finally upset the tears that had been brimming inside her all night. Her face dismantled under the weight of them, and gave way completely with a bursting sob as she pushed her chair away from the table and ran through the huge double doors into the central vestibule. They heard her small feet on the wooden floorboards receding behind them, then the slam of another heavy door.

  The merchant looked sheepishly around at them all. ‘Gosh, I do apologise. It’s been a long day, and the heat you know…I’ll just…’ He made to get out of his chair.

  ‘No, don’t bother yourself, I’ll go and see to her.’

  It was the Governor’s wife, speaking for the first time that night. With a sigh which seemed to say that she’d seen it all before, she rose from the table, ample in a bottle-green evening dress, and walked slowly and purposefully through the carved double doors. While she was gone the servants served port. Again, Arthur declined but he did allow himself a smoke of his pipe as he sat back and listened to the others talk about matters of commerce, the railways and the war in the south. The cicadas sang their static song in the darkness beyond the balcony and he wondered if he would ever get used to their sound, or indeed any of Africa.

  Eventually the Governor’s wife returned, but just to excuse herself and say goodnight. She was about to leave when Mr Beardsley cleared his throat;

  ‘Er, Charlotte. Is the old girl all right?’

  She looked at him as a mother might at a tiresome child.

  ‘Oh, yes, fine. Silly girl was wearing a corset. In this heat,’ she added, shaking her head, and then as she turned to leave, ‘Nearly cut in two with heat rash, no wonder she looked so miserable.’

  The merchant managed a weak smile. ‘Oh good, jolly good,’ he said quietly, avoiding the eyes of the others and swilling the last dash of port in his glass.

  ♦

  The dinner party ended not long after the Governor’s wife retired. Mr Beardsley and Mr Pruen were both staying at the consulate, so a car was ordered for Frank and Arthur to return to Stonetown. Beardsley made his excuses and also left them, apparently now back in buoyant mood.

  As they waited on the balcony for their car to arrive Mr Pruen also retired to his room, but returned again just as they were taking their leave of the Governor. He had a brown leather-bound book in his hand, which he held before him as he approached Arthur.

  ‘It was very interesting to meet you, Father Cripps. I wish you well on your mission.’ He took Arthur’s hand and shook it, then placed the book in it. ‘A copy of my book. I always try to travel with a few. I’d like you to have it. Never know, may come in useful.’

  He let go of his hand and Arthur thanked him as the headlights of their car swept and trembled up the rough track towards the house. The four of them made their way down the exterior steps into the garden, and at the bottom of the steps thev all shook hands once more. With a crunch of tyres over stone the car pulled up outside the garden wall and Frank and Arthur walked down the path, through the jasmine and honeysuckle, the cicadas loud in their ears as the footsteps of the two men behind them receded up the stone steps back into the house. As he got into the car Arthur noticed how its headlights lit the beach at the end of the track, spotlighting the waves, bowing again and again in their beams like actors at the end of a play.

  After his prayers that night Arthur had looked through the pages of Mr Pruen’s book, lying on his bed with a flickering kerosene lamp beside him. There were sketches of animals, traps, how to build a bush dwelling, descriptions of sicknesses and their bush cures, and a daunting appendix listing the supplies considered necessary for ‘one person travelling in Central Africa for one year’. He skimmed over the lists, noting Pruen’s advice after some of the items. From ‘Personal Supplies’:

  One tent, 8ft. or 9ft. square, with fly, and extra ceiling inside of dark green baize

  One canvas camp bedstead, with unjointed poles

  One Willesden canvas bag, open at one end only for bedstead

  One very easy folding chair

  One ribbed hair mattress

  Two small pillows

  Four pillow cases

  Two pair of sheets

  Six blankets

  Mosquito net, arranged on cane ribs, in shape like the hood of a perambulator, but 2ft 3in wide, and half instead of one-quarter circle. It should have a linen fringe all around and tuck in.

  One dressing case, well fitted

  One India-rubber camp bath, whalebone ribs

  One ebonite flask

  One bull’s-eye lantern

  Four dozen boxes of matches

  One luminous match box-case

  Six ‘Charity’ or ‘Art’ blankets (two for servants, two for headmen, two for sick porters)

  Two policeman’s capes, for messengers in rainy season (N. B. Tents, blankets, etc., must be lent ; on no account given as presents, or they will be bartered for food or drink at the first opportunity).

  From’The Outfitter’:

  Clothes pegs, half gross. (Very necessary articles, usually forgotten)

  Alarum—No wild animal will enter a tent at night where an alarum is ticking. A luminous face (which shines well after exposure to the brilliant African sunshine) is useful.

  Two tweed suits, unlined

  Two canvas suits for marching and hunting

  Two flannel suits

  Flannel shirts with good collar-bands but no collars
>
  Three travelling caps

  Two helmets (both good and cheap in Zanzibar)

  Brown-leather, broad-toed, thick-soled boots

  Strong, thick-soled slippers

  Comfortable, easy slippers

  Two pairs thin cork soles

  One pair of lasts for boots

  Spare laces

  Linen towels

  Turkish towels

  Six pyjama suits

  He put the book down, wondering why anyone would need six pyjama suits and leaving the lists that followed for ‘Cooking Appliances’, ‘Scientific Instruments’, ‘The Luncheon Basket’, ‘Groceries’ and ‘Packing Cases’ unread.

  Turning off the lamp, he pulled the side of his mosquito net down and tucked it under his mattress. A short gust of air blew in from the open window above his bed, indenting the net and briefly cooling his skin. It was still hot and he was sweating despite his decision to abandon his one pyjama suit and sleep naked. He lay there for a moment, listening to the night outside: the turning of the sea’s pages, the hush and fizz of the waves on the shore, the sudden screeching and confusion of two cats fighting, then silence. Just his breath in the sparse room. Turning onto his side, he thought of his small packing case in the corner, and of how his belongings compared to Mr Pruen’s recommended supplies. Two suits now (counting his purchase this afternoon), some notebooks, pencils and one pen, his Bible and Book of Common Prayer, a photograph of his mother (also called Charlotte—he had thought of her when introduced to the girl tonight), an old hat, some shirts, underwear, a pair of boots and not much else. He rolled onto his back again, closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him. The whine of a mosquito caught inside his net swung loud then quiet then loud in his ear, and he wondered, once again, if he was prepared for what lay ahead. Or, as he thought of the Princess’s story, for what he had left behind.

  ♦

  That had all been just over a week ago, but already Zanzibar seemed far away to him, already that visit was organising itself into memories and so much of what he had thought and seen there had been lost or altered. But at least now he would know if he was prepared, because the journey was over, and he was here. Snatches of conversation in the corridor outside his door confirmed that the Hertzog had been allowed into harbour and they would be disembarking soon. He considered going up on deck to take a look, but he was tired and he knew he would be needing his sleep over the next few days, so turning onto his side, he pulled the thin pillow over his exposed ear and tried to get another hour’s rest, or at least back to the half-waking thoughts of a poem that had been drifting in his mind before he had woken. It was a poem he had been working on throughout the voyage, a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and there on the inside of his eyelids he could still see the imprint of the lines he had formed in his semiconscious state. They were just about tangible and he tried to call them back once more, but like the ridges on a sand dune, they disintegrated under his touch, slipping away, edging back from language towards images again. Orpheus at the lip of the cave, turning and condemning himself with every degree of his turn. And there behind him, Eurydice, his lover, willing him not to, and at the same time drinking in every molecule of his being before she is tugged back to her darkness. Yes, he had the image, but not the words. They had gone, silting somewhere in his sleep. He hoped they would surface again, somehow they had felt right.

  Turning onto his back again, he opened his eyes. Above him the same dimly lit patch of ceiling that he had woken up to for the past month came into focus, its cheap paint blistered with damp. From Naples, through the Suez Canal, Aden, Zanzibar, and now Beira Bay, Portuguese Mozambique. In all these places he had woken up to this sight. All his dreams ended here, in this damp patch of ceiling inches above his head. But he had chosen this, to travel steerage rather than in the more spacious cabins of 2nd or ist class. And he wouldn’t have had it any other way, despite both his brother William’s protestations and the concerns of the church committee, both of whom were dismayed by his choice. Once on board, though, he’d soon realised that he was still relatively well off, at least compared to the native passengers, who were restricted to the open deck accommodation.

  He had taken a look at their quarters on the second day out of Aden, and was disgusted at what he found. The men (they were all men) were Somalis picked up to work on the Rhodesian railways. They were crouched beneath an ageing green canvas stretched above them as an improvised roof. The rain, spray and sea wind all blew through holes in the material, giving the cramped collection of dark arms, legs and heads a persistent skin of moisture, slick on their bodies. The area was completely inadequate, the space having been reduced to make room for extra cargo, and he went straight to the German captain of the ship and complained, demanding he take some action to improve the conditions for these men. To his credit the captain listened and agreed with him that something ought to be done, though Arthur was aware of an irritation in his manner running beneath the smooth surface of his words. When he returned in a couple of days the canvas had been replaced, and a number of the men had been moved to other quarters further along the starboard side of the ship. But the situation still frustrated him. The divide in comfort was a gross insult and Arthur made sure to take half his food there every day for the rest of the voyage. And he made sure the captain knew that he did.

  The man beneath him was still having a restless time of it, not just coughing now, but turning on the axis of his sleep as well. With each shift of his weight the flimsy bunks rocked and creaked, and the loose screws holding the bed to the wall of the cabin slid in their worn holes. The man, whose name was Joseph O’Connor, was younger than Arthur, more of a boy than a man. He was thin and pale, sent on this voyage by his father to follow in the wake of Rhodes and his pocket-fuls of diamonds. From what Arthur could make of it his father had booked this voyage for his son because he wanted a new world for him. London, he had told him, was no place to start a life now, not when there was so much of Africa to make your own, to build your dreams in. He himself had travelled from Ireland as a boy to follow his dreams in England, and now his son would follow his to Africa. And that was what the boy seemed to be travelling on: dreams, borrowed dreams, not even his own. But then who was he to dismiss Joseph’s borrowed dreams? Wasn’t he, after all, travelling on dreams himself? Towards them and away from them, pushed and pulled, by borrowed and broken dreams alike.

  He knew his decision to leave England had caused pain. He thought of his mother’s distress, her worries for his safety and his promise to her to stay in Africa for just two years. But then he thought of his brother too, William, how he had glanced ai his pocket watch as the train pulled out of the station, as if even then he wasn’t leaving quickly enough. He knew his brother loved him as much as his mother, but he showed it in a very different way. And he would, there is no doubt, be feeling some relief now his troublesome younger sibling was so far away, now that things could finally be allowed to settle. Except of course, lying there looking at his damp patch of ceiling, Arthur knew they would never settle entirely; not in him or, he found himself hoping, in her. What had he done, leaving like that? Maybe he should have taken the risk and, like Orpheus, not gone on, but should have turned back instead. And if he had done, then maybe she would, after all, have still been there, waiting for him to turn. Waiting for him to come back to her, for the touch of his hands on her face, the sound of his voice in her ear and the taste of his breath on her skin.

  ♦

  Joseph O’Connor’s dreams obviously weren’t going to let Arthur return to his, so, swinging his legs off the edge of the bunk, he let himself down onto the floor of the cramped two-berth cabin. He reached for the khaki suit he had bought in Zanzibar, hanging on the end of his bed. Though a little on the small side, wearing it made him feel suitably adventurous. He pulled on the trousers and put the jacket on over his cotton shirt, before slipping his bare feet into his boots. Turning to the cabin door, he reached for its handle. As he did,
he glanced back at the sleeping form of Joseph, who looked even younger now, frowning like a confused child over the top of the twisted sheets that had wound themselves around him. Arthur looked at him and could not help but feel a pang of concern about what lay in store for this boy in Africa. Joseph rolled over again, away from him, and Arthur turned away too, opening the cabin door, stepping through it and walking up the narrow corridor, acknowledging as he went that the concern he felt was not just for Joseph. It was for himself as well.

  ♦

  He heard the noise as he climbed the steep stairwells towards the top deck of the ship. Muffled at first, it became clearer the nearer he got. It was the noise of men, not at work, but at argument. The cadences of two languages were confronting each other above him, and while he could not make out what those languages were, he could tell from their pitches and rhythms they were infused with high emotions. Aggression, fear and panic. Coming up onto the first level beneath the deck he pushed through a heavy door, and the two tongues suddenly became more forceful, like the heat from an opened oven. He broke into a jog and took the steps up onto the deck two at a time.

  As he emerged into the morning air the brightness of the light took him by surprise, and his eyes were momentarily confused, shot with white stars and a prism light reflecting in his pupils. He put his hand out to steady himself on a rail, vaguely aware of the activity far below him on the dock to his right, and, shading his face with the other hand, waited for his eyes to clear. As they did the source of the argument came into focus. The Somalis from the native accommodation stood as a crowd further up the starboard side of the ship. All of them seemed to be there, about fifty in total. They were tightly bunched, and moving, swaying together, a muscle of men. As Arthur watched they suddenly contracted as one, recoiling from something he couldn’t see beyond them. They were all agitated, but the raised voices came from the front of the group, the part he couldn’t see despite his height. The Somalis were a tall people.