A Dancer's Guide to Africa

by Terez Mertes Rose

  Changing posts mid-service wasn’t the challenging task I’d thought it might be. A meeting with Chuck the following day confirmed the news. Two days later I flew to Makokou and collected my belongings from the hotel storage. Henry, driving to Libreville on business, rerouted to stop in Makokou and pick me up. We rumbled into the capital the following afternoon after only one multi-hour delay. The case de passage was, if anything, even more noisy and crowded with strangers, mostly males. Henry fit in; I didn’t. The next morning, I slipped out early, finding sanctuary at the Peace Corps office, where I attended to final details for the new post.

  “My, aren’t we busy?” I heard a familiar voice call out around noon. I looked up to see Christophe standing in the reception area. The world tilted crazily. I clutched the back of a chair to keep from moving with it. He looked impossibly glamorous in his pressed trousers and button-down shirt, like something out of an Yves Saint Laurent advertisement.

  “They told me you were in Paris all summer,” I told him, keeping my voice cool, while noting it seemed to have dropped an octave. They—the Peace Corps gossip circuit—had also informed me his girlfriend had joined him and his mother on their annual trip. The Other Woman was sounding rather permanent.

  “I am back from Paris.”

  “And how was it?”

  “It was very French.” His smile was lazy, assured, focused on me, only me. Heat coursed through my body. Choirs of angels broke into song. “I don’t suppose you have time in your schedule for lunch?”

  I pretended to debate the idea. “I suppose I do need to eat.”

  “Correct.”

  “All right. Give me ten minutes.”

  We found a restaurant a block away, a casual, boisterous place with wooden tables and benches packed together. Over lunch, I told Christophe about my new post.

  “That’s wonderful.” He looked pleased. “A much better post for you. When do you leave?”

  “In four days’ time.”

  “I’m glad I caught you before I left Libreville later this afternoon.”

  “Oh.” I hoped my disappointment didn’t show. “Where are you going?”

  “Just to my parents’ vacation home in Cap Estérias. A short drive from Libreville. Care to join me?”

  My heart leapt at the thought. “Ha, ha, very funny,” I said.

  “I’m serious. It’s a beautiful, relaxing place with plenty of rooms.”

  As if.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  I sought to change the subject. “So, tell me about Paris. I’ve never been.”

  “You’ve never been to Paris?! Oh, that’s charming.”

  I bristled. “I’m from Nebraska. I hardly left the Midwest, much less the U.S. Not all of us can jet-set around the world, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just so refreshing to be around someone who isn’t jaded about travel.”

  “Are you referring to your travel companion?” The Other Woman—I’d stepped into controversial territory.

  “You mean Mireille?” He frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. She’s grown up with the best of everything. Paris boarding school, vacations to Monte Carlo, Rome, New York. Her parents dote on her, give her all she asks for.”

  “Sounds like just another spoiled woman.”

  His eyes narrowed. I wanted to kick myself. Then he smiled. “Still the same Fiona.”

  “I’ll never change.”

  “I hope you don’t.” He held my gaze, which, to my aggravation, had precisely the same power over me that it always had.

  I took a steadying gulp of water, picked up my fork, and faked interest in my remaining rice. “So… where is this Mireille now?”

  “She’s still in Paris.”

  “Why did you come back early?”

  “Paris in August doesn’t interest me. I like my life here. Mireille prefers Paris, so she’s staying with friends for two more weeks.” His mother was still in Paris too, he informed me. His father was traveling abroad, as well. Christophe shook his head in mock sadness. “I’m all alone.”

  “Poor baby. But look on the bright side. You can go out and hit on women to your heart’s content. In fact, what number am I on your list?”

  I didn’t like these comments that kept slipping from my mouth, one after the other, like soda cans from a 7-11 store dispenser. But neither did I like the way he was making me feel. This schoolgirl breathlessness—after surviving teaching, harassment, parasites, solo travel through West Africa—felt more than a little pathetic.

  I’d forgotten one thing, however: Christophe was not one to passively withstand attacks. He sat there now, silent and grim-faced. The intensity of his look shrank me back down to the nervous, uncertain trainee of last year. “You know,” he said finally, “sometimes I just want to shake you and make you listen to yourself. One minute you’re taunting me and the next, you’re playing the victim. You act as though you’ve been the one wronged, when the truth is, you never resist the opportunity to attack me.”

  I glared at him but said nothing.

  “I always enjoy seeing you, Fiona. If you want to be just friends, fine. If you want to be lovers, that’s more than fine. But don’t paint me the villain just because you can’t make up your mind.”

  I wanted to lash back and tell him this had nothing to do with sex. To my frustration, I was at a complete loss for words.

  “And if you think I said all this because I don’t care,” he added, “you’re wrong. I care deeply for you. Enough to tell you to stop playing games.”

  I sat there in a seething silence, refusing to meet his eyes, until he rose to pay the bill. Alone, the thoughts swarmed out of me, toxic and uncensored.

  The bastard. How dare he scold me like I’m still his subordinate?

  Can you believe his nerve? What a prince. Who does he think he is?

  But then a less sympathetic voice chimed in.

  Why, precisely, are you rejecting him?

  The thought, annoying as it was, made me pause. Really, where were my virtues, my clinging to moral righteousness, getting me here? Was I more noble for denying him, not to mention myself, a sensual pleasure that had been missing from my life for well over a year? After Lane, there’d been ballet to turn to. After ballet, there’d been… pining.

  Pining was, quite possibly, the most unproductive use of time and energy ever. It was the kind of thing the Fiona of last year had thought worth doing.

  I didn’t want to be that person anymore.

  So, don’t, the annoyingly pragmatic voice told me.

  It was my choice. Just like the solo Togo trip, which I’d almost canceled out of fear after Carmen had bailed. I could go with Christophe to Cap Estérias. I could be that person I’d learned to be in Togo, intrepid and, while still insecure and scared, not letting it stop me from discovering new things. Places. People. Experiences.

  When Christophe returned, temper cooled, he eyed me warily. I watched his expression shift to shocked surprise when I told him, through a roar of adrenaline that sent blood racing, pounding in my ears, that if the offer still stood, I wanted to go away with him.

  “You’re saying you’ll join me?” He looked incredulous.

  “Yes. I’m in.”

  “So, if I swing by the case de passage in two hours’ time, you’ll be there, ready and waiting,” he said, in a way that suggested he didn’t believe a word I’d said.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I am.”

  I wasn’t sure I knew how to be a different, more evolved or enlightened Fiona. But I sensed it was time to try.

  Chapter 15

  Cap Estérias was a scenic point twenty kilometers north of Libreville that jutted out into the Atlantic. When the main highway ended, Christophe steered the car down a dirt road framed by banana trees and lush, overgrown palms. The road changed to gravel as Christophe
pulled up to a gated drive. He punched in a code, the iron gate swung open with a groan, and we drove in. The foliage cleared to expose an acre of manicured lawn. Set back on the grounds stood a cream-colored Mediterranean-style villa with bright pink bougainvillea growing in profusion against the side of the house. Rosebushes and hibiscus lined the pebbled walkway that led to the front door.

  When I stepped out of the car, the perfume of frangipani and freshly mown grass swirled around me. The ocean rumbled a welcome. I couldn’t believe this beauty and luxury belonged to just one family.

  From there, my feelings split into two camps. There was my unspoiled Midwestern side, whose family didn’t ever take fancy trips, and this was easily the most exquisite place I’d ever stayed at. The other side was the Peace Corps volunteer skeptic. This was Africa, the place I’d felt so compelled to help? Was this uneven distribution of wealth the source of the problem, or was this just how life was? It was yet a new chapter on the “Africa doesn’t make sense” theme.

  Too much thinking.

  I looked at Christophe, who had come around with my bag, and decided to simply enjoy it all. He smiled at me, eyes still wary. When he reached out and took my hand, he seemed surprised that I didn’t yank it back.

  Inside the house, he led me through a marble foyer and down a hallway into a large, airy room with parquet floors and huge picture windows that overlooked the Atlantic. Sofas and matching tapestry chairs clustered around a glass coffee table scattered with French fashion magazines. On the walls hung French Impressionist paintings, interspersed with African batiks and masks. Christophe flipped a switch and a pair of ceiling fans began to rotate, stirring the flower-scented air.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “Kick off your shoes and relax. I’ll be right back.”

  As Christophe disappeared into the kitchen, I perched myself gingerly on the sofa and examined the framed photographs on the end table. One was of Christophe and his parents, taken years earlier. His mother, beautiful and slender with long black hair and light brown skin, looked like a Brazilian fashion model. She stood next to a tall, imposing African man whose chin jutted out proudly. The young Christophe, with the addition of innocence in his wide eyes, was as beautiful as the adult.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Christophe called out from the kitchen.

  “Yes,” I said in a voice that strove to be sophisticated, as if afternoons like this had happened all my life. “I’d like that.”

  I slipped off my sandals to better enjoy the soft, fleecy wool rug under my feet. We had scratchy, durable polyester carpets back home. This, in contrast, felt like standing on a cloud.

  Christophe returned with two glasses of wine. “Your mother is half-French, right?” I asked. He nodded. “Tell me about that.”

  “Her mother—my grandmother—grew up here in Gabon,” he said, handing me a glass. “She and my French grandfather met, got married a year later and moved to his estate in southern France. My mother and her two brothers spent most of their school years in France, summers and holidays in Gabon.” He settled across from me and took a reflective sip of wine.

  “Sounds like a nice life,” I offered.

  “True, but living like that has its disadvantages. In my mother’s mind, she’s French but not, Gabonese but not. For that reason, she’s always encouraged me to see myself as fully Gabonese, and Gabon as my home, no matter how many years we lived abroad.”

  “She looks young enough to be your sister.”

  “She often felt like that, more of a playmate than a mother. She could have no other children, another thing always separating her from the other African women. My father traveled a lot and it would often be just the two of us.”

  His expression softened as he told me about the relocations to London, Madrid, Paris, Washington D.C. At times his father could stay only long enough to settle the family in, and then he’d be off on a month-long trip, leaving Christophe and his mother alone to acclimate. When the loneliness grew too much for either of them, she’d gather him close and sing to him, alternately in French and Fang, which soothed them both, even though her Fang was not as good as his, a native of Gabon’s Woleu Ntem region, like his father. He told me about the ways she could counteract the isolation, the strangeness, turning it all into a sort of game, a grand adventure.

  “Sometimes when she was feeling restless, we’d go on a ‘date’ to a restaurant. She used to tell me I was her boyfriend and I believed it. Once when I was six, my father returned from a particularly long trip. My mother swooped down on him and took him into their bedroom, locking the door. I was furious. I remember pounding on the door, demanding that she let me in. I felt so angry and betrayed, I wouldn’t speak to either of them for two days.”

  He paused, abashed, and began to laugh. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”

  “Oh, please, don’t stop. I like it.”

  He looked at the photo again and smiled. “She’s a strong woman. You remind me of her, in many ways—stubborn, spirited, makes a definite impression on people.”

  “Thank you. I think.” I rose from the couch and peered out the window at the ocean. A child’s excitement arose in me to be out there in it. An hour remained before sunset. I turned to him. “Can we go swimming?”

  “We can do anything you want.”

  He directed me to a chrome and marble bathroom where I changed into my swimsuit. Afterward we headed outside, down a narrow sandy pathway. We soon came upon a wide expanse of deserted beach, dotted with coconut palms and beached Okoumé logs. The air smelled briny yet sweet, like pineapple seaweed. We settled on beach chairs and watched the ocean recede and creep back. The sparkling waves, with a glint of afternoon gold, beckoned.

  “I’m going in,” I said. “Coming?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll stand watch.”

  I waded out into the Atlantic, diving into the breakers. The undertow tugged at me as I sliced through the warm water, stretching my muscles, freeing my body. It felt glorious, the closest thing to dance I’d come to in a long time. I swam back and forth for twenty minutes, releasing the surplus dancer energy I’d carried for weeks. Months. Finally I made my way, dripping, chest heaving, back to shore and the chairs.

  “That was quite a workout,” Christophe remarked as I collapsed into the seat next to him.

  “I needed it. Bad.”

  “Are you dancing these days?”

  I shook my head. “Got my ballet shoe stolen, remember?”

  “We both know you could have obtained a replacement. In fact, give me the size and maker and I’ll order you a pair. A gift.”

  I ignored the offer. “What would be the point, anyway?”

  “Because you’re a dancer.”

  “Ballet doesn’t work here.”

  “Ballet is not the only form of dance.”

  “It’s what I excel at. I’m not comfortable doing the other styles.” I watched the ocean thunder onto the beach and whisper its retreat.

  “Have you tried?”

  “Of course I have. It would be hard to avoid.”

  Dance, I’d come to see, was everywhere in Africa. The Gabonese danced at clubs, bars, parties. They danced in church; they danced in rituals; they danced to honor the arrivals of politicians and luminaries. They danced any time someone put on the right music, which meant, any music with a beat.

  “And how was it?” he prodded.

  “I can’t dance African.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Why are you pushing this issue? You’ve seen me dance. I’m classical. I’m Caucasian. I cannot move like an African.”

  And I didn’t need Christophe to inform me why, that something in me was too rigid and had to loosen, not just physically but psychologically. I knew this. I’d watch the Gabonese move with a freedom within their bodies that I couldn’t even imagine. Relaxed energy flowed from all parts of their body: the legs, the torso, the arms. Sometimes the movement would be so small, just this gentle, rhythmic s
hifting from one foot to another. There was an innate flexibility in their hips that I lacked. When I saw toddlers learning to dance in tandem with learning to walk, I understood the source of the intuitive movement. Even before that. Babies were tucked on their mother’s backs, tied in place with a swathe of fabric. Every movement the mother made, and she went right along with her business, the child felt. Jiggling, swerving, dancing, striding, straining, from a child’s earliest kinetic memory.

  “You need to keep trying,” Christophe said, and I twisted around in irritation.

  “Can we just change the subject already?”

  “Fair enough.” I heard laughter in his voice. “Here’s something less controversial. I propose I bring our wine out here.”

  “Yes. I think I can agree with you there.”

  Chuckling, he rose from his seat and leaned over me. His hands gripped my bare shoulders as he planted a kiss on my forehead. “My briny, difficult Fiona. I’m so glad you’re here with me.” He walked toward the house, still chuckling to himself.

  My shoulders and forehead throbbed from the unexpected contact. I gazed out at the ocean and decided I was pretty glad too.

  “Let’s see,” Christophe said an hour later, peering in the refrigerator. “There’s a wedge of Pont-l’Evêque cheese, Moroccan olives, cornichons, grapes, some pâté de foie gras and a dozen eggs. I see our housekeeper bought two baguettes. Any of that sound appealing?”

  I sat on the kitchen counter, wearing a gauzy shirt and shorts, munching on sliced guava as I watched him rummage around, shirtless. Track lighting shone down on us, making me feel like we were on stage. “It all sounds great,” I said, “except I’m not sure what pâté de foie gras tastes like.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never had it before.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t we have a similar conversation earlier today? We don’t eat foie gras in Nebraska and if you find olives, they’re those chopped black circles that taste like wax.” I finished my guava with a flourish. “And before you start on your worldly kick, let me educate you on a thing or two.”

  He stood back from the refrigerator, hands on his hips, regarding me in amusement. Gabonese men, I decided, were particularly suited for the bare-chested look, with their sleek, muscular bodies and smooth skin. I dragged my thoughts back to my tirade.