Everyone drank Regab and palm wine until late into the night. “So, it’s not Libreville,” Carmen said, “but it’s fun, isn’t it?”
I pondered her question. “Oh, sure. Just not the kind of fun I’d anticipated.”
“I won’t even ask,” Carmen said. Before I could reply, she spoke again. “His family’s originally from Oyem, did you know that?”
“Christophe’s?!”
Carmen nodded. “I saw him last month, in fact. With a woman who wasn’t Diana.”
“A relative?”
“Uh, I hope not.”
Two of Henry’s workers came over and started talking to Carmen. I was content to sit, dream about Christophe and stare into the bonfire, letting the others do the talking and dancing. The leaping flames lulled me into a trance. Sparks rose up from the crackling fire and disappeared into the sky like reverse shooting stars. I leaned my head back and watched their journey. The dark sky seemed endless and omnipotent, an upside-down ocean that soon made me feel dizzy. When I straightened up, I saw the woman again. Watching me.
The lame woman from Henry’s cuisine had been tracking me since our meeting. Whenever I glanced around, the woman was there, studying me. Even from across a yard, she would find a way to catch my eye. Seeing she had my attention, she approached. She was wearing a red dress that looked like it belonged in a 1950s ballroom. From its faded condition, I was willing to bet it had been manufactured around then as well.
She clasped my hand again, but didn’t seem to want to let go. Nodding and beaming, she began to speak in fractured French. “Those who are not here. You call them, with your spirit eyes. They will come to you.”
Was the woman drunk? Crazy? Her unflinching gaze made me increasingly uneasy. Although I’d grown used to stares, they weren’t like this—the appraising scrutiny of a juror who knows far more about the defendant than the court does. This, I decided, was why village settings made me uneasy. There was too much mystery lurking in the shadows, the trees.
“You dance,” the woman was now saying. “That is how they will know you. And they will join you.” She leaned closer. “Protect you.”
Protect me? What the hell? And how did she know I danced?
“You will dance tonight?” Her question sounded more like a mandate.
My smile was starting to ache from the effort. My head had begun to pound. “Merci, non,” I told her. “I don’t dance African.”
Carmen turned her attention back to us and mercifully, the woman stopped badgering me. After giving Carmen a friendly nod, she limped away.
“What was that all about?” Carmen asked.
“I don’t have a clue. Maybe Henry told her I used to be a dancer. She said I would dance. Also some weird shit about spirits and my spirit eyes, and how they’ll come to me.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“You tell me. Ghosts? Gendarmes? The dance police?”
“So, you’re going to join them in dancing? That’ll be fun to watch.”
“Hell, no!”
My reply came out louder and more snappish than I’d intended.
Carmen regarded me curiously. “Okay, no biggie.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bark. It’s just… I don’t know. That was creepy, somehow.”
“It’s all right, Miss Spirit Eyes.” She snickered. “That’ll have to be your nickname now.”
“I think not. God.” I winced and drove my fingers into my hair. “Why can’t normal stuff happen to me?”
“Because you were meant for weird things, Fiona. The eyes and hair just sort of beg for it.”
“Thanks. I knew some day I’d find my calling.”
“Spirit dancing,” Carmen said. “Next best thing to ballet.”
My tension began to ease. “Sure. Maybe I’ll make that next year’s secondary project.”
Carmen lifted her cup. “Anyway, here’s to a very interesting new year ahead of us.”
“‘Interesting.’ I’m sure that will prove to be the understatement of the year.” I knocked my cup against hers and we both took a big, sloppy gulp.
The entire village seemed to have a hangover on New Year’s Day. Only the roosters were up early. Even after everyone rose, the sleepy feeling never dissipated. “That’s village life for you,” Henry said, yawning over his cup of Nescafé. “No one rushes. The work will always be there, so why hurry?” Greeting people, he informed us, could take several minutes per interaction. “There’s an etiquette to it all,” Henry explained, “shaking everyone’s hand, inquiring about health, about family, about family’s health, commenting on the weather. Waiting while someone fetches Regab or palm wine. Making toasts before the first sip. The second one. The third. Only then will they talk about business. It’s exhausting.”
I found I could better appreciate the village’s slower pace that afternoon when Henry pulled out a joint. As the marijuana sedated my body into a good-natured stupor, a part of my brain awoke. All the answers, I felt, now lay within my grasp. I tried to explain to Carmen and Henry once he’d returned with a bowl of popcorn.
“I understand what that woman was trying to tell me last night. And how she acted like she knew me. Because don’t we all recognize ourselves somehow in the eyes of another? We all serve as a mirror to the other person’s soul. Maybe every white person represents to them some shadowy reflection of what they’ve always known.” I began to stuff popcorn into my mouth. I’d never tasted such good popcorn in my entire life. I chomped through another handful and another while continuing with my theory.
“How easy it must be to figure out each foreigner who comes here, instituting their own agenda into the serenity that is Gabonese village life. I can just see the conflicts within the psyche of each Gabonese—the side that resents us for still acting like colonials, but then the other part that looks at the vines in the forest and just grows, you know? Like, I feel a part of this growth. If I sit here really quiet, I can feel it happening.”
It dawned on me that Henry and Carmen were laughing. “What’s up?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”
“Fiona,” Henry asked, “have you ever gotten stoned before?”
Flustered, I tried to regain control over my thoughts, my words. “I had my art to think of first, you know. It’s not something you’d do before dancing—it would be a real downer. No wait.” I rose from my wicker chair. “It might not be bad at all.” My ears perked up to the tinny sound of an African pop tune playing on someone’s radio. “Especially because I hear the message within the music and it tells me what to do.”
Sure enough, my hips began to swing on their own accord as I wafted around the dusty yard. An approving jury of inner critics assured me I had never danced better. Further away, a chicken in the yard pecked at the dirt to the beat of the music and I squatted down to watch, entranced. I’d never squat-danced before—I found it very sensuous and liberating. Carmen had not stopped laughing for ten minutes. Or at least it felt like ten minutes. Maybe even an hour.
“This song has been going on for a really long time,” I told Henry.
“Actually, it’s been less than three minutes. But keep dancing with the chicken—you’re doing a great job.”
Carmen finally stopped laughing. “And here you thought you were missing out on something by not going to Libreville.” As we all started laughing again, I decided village life had some advantages, after all.
Chapter 10
Christophe broke up with Diana.
It happened in Libreville on New Year’s Day, probably around the time I’d been dancing with the chicken. Rich, who’d spent the holidays in Libreville, gave me the news back in Makokou when I stopped by his house.
“Oh, no, poor Diana.” My voice came out abnormally high. I paused to modulate it. “Was she upset about it?”
“Looked like it. Keisha took a few extra days to return with her to Mouila. Christophe had taken off already—moved into an apartment in Libreville the very next day.” Rich shook his head. “Man, was K
eisha hot about everything. Not a pleasant time to be around her and Diana. But, hey, the New Year’s Eve party was great. Of course, others might have felt differently. You know Norman, a math teacher in your group? He quit the next day. I don’t think it was because of the party, though.”
He continued on about events in Libreville. I nodded, struggling to pay attention amid the clamor inside my head. Christophe is free. The news reverberated in my head and distracted me all evening. I bade Rich good night a few hours later and stumbled down the dirt road in a daze. Christophe was available. I would no longer be pursuing another woman’s man. I’d be in Libreville in April, for the education volunteers’ conference; we’d find a way to spend time together. I knew this, with a certainty I couldn’t explain even to myself.
I returned to the classroom the following Monday, strengthened by the news, feeling it blanket me like a warm cloak on a chilly night. Whenever the students got too noisy, I drew the comforting feeling in closer. Through the course of the week, when I realized I really, really didn’t like my job and that Makokou was lonely and depressing, the thought was there, sustaining me. This difficult year of teaching was just a way station, I decided. A trial before I changed posts and began my real experience in Gabon. With him.
I avoided Keisha for two weeks. I didn’t want her wrath falling on me, the woman who’d caught Christophe’s eye during training, maybe even the reason he’d broken up with Diana. But in the end, hunger for the company of other Americans drove me to Rich and Keisha’s side of town late on Sunday afternoon. They were at Rich’s house, sitting on his verandah in wicker chairs, drinking beer, catching the soft breeze that rose from the river. Keisha, to my relief, didn’t treat me any differently. She inquired after my holiday trip to Oyem and sympathized about the roadblock and forced change in plans.
“How’s life on your side of town these days?” she asked.
“Fine, I suppose. Except for the fact that someone broke into my house while I was gone.”
“Again? How many times does this make?”
“Three.”
“Shawn had the same problems last year. They weren’t even supposed to put a woman in that house, or at that lycée post.” She frowned at me as if both had been my doing.
“I don’t know what to do about it. I keep wondering if it’s the same person or a group of them. And why? Is it because they resent me?”
“Don’t take it personally,” Rich said. “It happens here. Especially to Americans and Europeans, for the obvious reason that we have valuables, and most people here don’t. You ladies just need to toughen up a little.” When Keisha turned on him in a fury, he ducked and grabbed her hand before she could hit him.
It had taken me a while to figure out they were sleeping together. Their relationship seemed to hover somewhere between close friends and an old married couple, with little of the groping and heated glances Carmen and Daniel were constantly exchanging. Occasionally, however, Rich would squeeze her knee or grab her by the waist and nuzzle her neck. At times, I profited from their togetherness—there was a settled, secure feeling in their homes. But other times, their intimacy made me feel all the lonelier here.
As it grew dark, the mosquitoes drove us inside. “Let me make dinner for you lovely ladies,” Rich proposed. “That will prove I’m a nice guy, right?” He plopped down on the couch next to Keisha and gave her a kiss. “Do I pass?”
She sized him up before patting his thigh. “You do better than some.”
He mock-cringed. “You treat us men so harshly.”
“Only those who think they can get anything they want.” Her last words were laced with hostility.
I knew who she was talking about: Christophe.
I bent my head to inspect the dirt under my fingernails, dreading a glare from her that would indict me as the Other Woman. When I looked up and caught her eye, however, her expression seemed oddly conspiratorial. “No kidding,” I said, to test the waters.
This seemed to satisfy Keisha, acting as a sort of password that unleashed a torrent of words. “African men. Honest to God, they act like children who never had to grow up. Apparently some of them don’t have to. Think they can treat women any way they want.” Her angry gaze returned to me. “Asshole. He’d been acting so charming up to New Year’s Eve, I even commented to Diana about that. She agreed. And then she shows up at the party. He’d invited her, can you believe it? And for her to actually come. The nerve….” She snorted in contempt.
I had no idea to whom she was referring. When Keisha caught my baffled expression, her eyes darted to Rich. “You told me you told her.”
“I did.”
“Then why is she staring at me like I have two heads?”
“I didn’t mention that part.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t tell her.”
“Um. No. I mean yes, I didn’t.”
“You idiot.”
“Why?”
“God, men are clueless.”
My chest constricted. I didn’t want to hear this. I wanted to walk out Rich’s door right then and return to my crummy house and my life raft of dreams.
She scowled at him and turned back to me. “The other woman.” She spat out each word. “The one he left Diana for.”
I’d had years of experience in performing. If your toes had been rubbed raw by your pointe shoes after six hours of rehearsal and began to bleed, too bad. If they didn’t heal before the performance, you taped them up, took a few Advil, gritted your teeth and went and performed. Image was everything in ballet. No matter how much your feet or hamstrings or pulled groin hurt, you went out there and smiled. My training kicked into place at Rich’s house. Ah, so the other woman lives in Libreville and that’s why he decided to stay? How very interesting. So, a Gabonese woman, this time. She’s gorgeous, you say? Imagine her showing up at the party like that! Oh, that Christophe, he’ll never learn, will he?
Keisha warmed to her task. “So here’s the worst part. There was already a teaching replacement for him in Mouila. Apparently Christophe had told his lycée director in December that he wouldn’t be returning the following semester. He knew he was going to leave Diana, but never gave her the slightest hint until New Year’s Day. What a snake.”
I stayed another fifteen minutes before making a great display of consulting my watch. Exclaiming over the time, I turned down Rich’s offer of corned beef pizza. Finally I was free to make my way home, where I set the shattered bits of my heart on the kitchen table, right next to the crushed illusions. I pulled down my bottle of Cognac and a spare roll of toilet paper (no Kleenex sold here), and headed off to the bedroom to either get drunk or cry myself to sleep.
I did both.
The next day I was in a foul mood at the lycée. The students picked up on it and responded with gleeful unruliness. I was exhausted, my head hurt and I wasn’t prepared for the day’s lesson. By the third hour, Calixte’s class, I was ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
In Calixte’s class, no one wanted to give me the right answers. It was as though the entire class had taken a vote the previous Friday before leaving school that no one would do the homework or know the answers. Even my best students could only offer me sheepish smiles.
“Can not one person give me a complete sentence, using words we’ve already learned?” I asked in exasperation.
Calixte raised his hand. “Please, Miss. I practice English on the holiday. I speak very English now.”
I studied him suspiciously. “All right,” I said.
He rose to standing. He was huge; the desk was comically small for him. He cleared his throat theatrically. “Today I am busy with Miss Fiona in the classroom.”
The students all screamed in unison and went on to shriek with laughter.
Calixte raised his hands for silence. “I love to busy with Miss Fiona,” he continued. “I busy every day in the school. We busy together.”
Through the continued shrieks of laughter, which now sounded je
ering—toward me—I met Calixte’s gaze. The irony was that he’d never before been so engaged in English class. Under any other circumstance, I could have found a silver lining in that. But this was intolerable.
Something in me snapped. “Screw you, you little shits,” I screamed. “Screw every last one of you.” A silence descended over the room as I continued, not caring that they couldn’t understand my rapid English. “Do you think I left my family and my comfortable life behind to stand here and take this crap? Do you care? Do you ever stop to think this might be a little difficult for me?”
All eyes were riveted on me, round with shock.
“Open your fucking notebooks,” I spat. This the students understood. Notebooks had never been opened so quickly. “Write down these goddamned words.” I grabbed a piece of chalk from the blackboard sill and slapped the day’s vocabulary words on the board, the chalk squeaking in protest. “Copy page seventy-three from your books.” I wrote the page number on the blackboard and made slashes under the word “copy.”
My fury had made me enormous. “Questions?” I barked and they all jumped in their seats, shook their heads no, and began to work.
All except Calixte, who sat back, arms folded, and regarded me with a proud smile.
The game had begun.
February signaled the onset of the long rainy season, where the morning clouds dissipated daily to expose blue sky, a burning sun and suffocating heat. In the afternoons, spectacular thunderheads piled up in the distance. A few hours later, the rumble of thunder would announce the imminent arrival of another storm. Torrents of rain would clatter on the corrugated tin roofs only to abruptly halt thirty minutes to an hour later. Energy spent, the clouds would break up, with the sun bursting out for one last encore before sunset.
The neighbor family’s three-year-old daughter died. It had been a swift illness, I gleaned, something with high fever, and within forty-eight hours, she was gone. Their loss was devastating to consider, impossible to find the right words to offer in condolence. Grief saturated the air, heavier than the humidity. But it was African-style grief. After five days and nights of endless activity at their compound, with visitors, rattling gourds, wailing, singing, celebrating, it all abruptly stopped and the household returned, eerily, to precisely the same scene and hub of activity as before.
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