The Memory of Love

by Forna, Aminatta

  ‘They say we will be able to watch it on television.’

  ‘That’s right! Hey, Kekura, what do you say? We’ll go to your offices and watch it.’

  Kekura inclined his head. ‘It would be my pleasure, certainly.’

  ‘History in the making. But I tell you something I would like to see more,’ Julius said, still staring at the bottle.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  Julius looked up, his face solemn. He reached out and picked up his beer. Suddenly his face cracked into a great grin. ‘The day the first African lands on the moon!’

  The laughter erupted just as Saffia opened the sliding door to call us to eat. Julius stood up holding his Guinness bottle aloft. ‘To the first black man on the moon!’

  ‘To the first black man on the moon,’ we echoed and drank.

  I can’t remember all that was discussed that night at Saffia and Julius’s table. There was no talk of politics, as I recall. Not in the immediate sense. Later, I wondered what the conversation would have been had they not had a stranger in their midst. I ate without noticing the food. Time passed. The conversation went back and forth. A new Chinese restaurant. The road-building scheme. A new comedy show on the radio of which Kekura was producer and therefore in constant search of new material. A story was told – by Ade, I believe. It went like this: three men visited a car dealership, one an aristocratic fellow dressed in a fine gown and carrying an attaché case. A Nigerian prince looking to buy a fleet of cars. The manager of the salesroom hurried out to greet them personally. The prince shook hands, but did not deign to utter a word, leaving it to his assistants to handle the discussions. They were ready to make a cash deal. Indeed the prince had brought the money with him in his attaché case. The manager, keen to oblige, hastily agreed to allow the two retainers to take one of the latest models for a test drive. Reassured by the presence of the taciturn prince, who sat in the waiting area with his briefcase of cash upon his knee, he decided not to bother to accompany them. Time passed. One hour turned into two. The car and the two retainers showed no sign of returning. The manager decided to speak to the prince and soon realised the magnitude of his error. For this was no prince at all, but a local beggar, deaf and mute, cajoled into unwittingly acting a role for which he was perfectly suited. The attaché case was found to be filled with newspaper.

  Everybody laughed, Julius so vigorously he began to wheeze. To my mind it did not seem anything in particular, but I saw a change come over Saffia. She watched with concern and seemed about to rise and go to him when Julius recovered himself. I would have given the episode no heed but for Saffia’s reaction, in the indication it gave of the quality and nature of their relationship.

  When the general laughter had subsided, she asked, ‘What became of the beggar, the prince?’

  Ade replied he didn’t know.

  ‘Well, at least he got a bath and a haircut,’ said Saffia. ‘And a new suit.’

  ‘He probably masterminded the whole damned thing,’ said Julius and everybody laughed again. ‘He could be driving over the border right now.’

  ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ cried Kekura. He grabbed Julius’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. ‘There’s the punchline. Thank you, my friend. I owe you. Whatever you want, I owe you.’

  Julius smiled. Kekura stood up, almost overbalancing his chair, wiped his mouth and replaced the napkin at the side of his plate, straightened his jacket and said, ‘Well, good people, until next time.’ He turned and bowed to Saffia. ‘Another exquisite meal, madam. I thank you.’ He patted his stomach, which prompted a smile from Saffia.

  I wished I had thought to praise the meal.

  It was close on eleven o’clock. The curfew no longer applied; still people maintained the habit of returning home reasonably early of an evening. By midnight the streets were empty. Ade asked Kekura for a lift. Julius and Saffia rose to see them out. I stood up to shake hands. Very probably I was expected to take my leave too, but I did not.

  After the door had closed the three of us remained standing. Then Julius invited me to join him for a whisky on the verandah. From a bottle of Red Label he poured us a half-tumbler of Scotch each. He handed me a glass and sat down, sideways to me, his legs stretched out in front of him. From where I sat I had a view of his profile in repose. He kept a beard, did I mention that? In those days it was a mildly unconventional act. For a long time he said nothing but stared out over the balcony railing.

  I wondered where in the house Saffia was.

  ‘See that?’ said Julius, waving his glass at the view. Scattered lights marked the city and, farther away, the shape of the peninsula. Above us the stars. The moon was hidden behind the eaves of the house. A single, far-off light burned a tiny hole in the thick layer of black that separated earth from sky, a foreign trawler most likely. A row of moving lights made its way across a strip of blackness to and away from the peninsula.

  ‘When I was a child I came to live in the city with one of my aunts for a few years. My mother had passed on, you know. My aunt, she was a strict woman. Yes indeed,’ and he laughed. ‘I’d like to say I was fond of her but that would be lying. The woman was a bully. A greedy bully. She took me out of the school my father was paying fees for and she used me as her errand boy. Every day she would send me across the bay into town to deliver messages. There was a ferry in those days, a passenger ferry.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said. The ferry was in fact a fishing canoe, poled by a single man. I had taken it once or twice that I could remember, on the way to visit relatives. The currents in the water could be perilous.

  ‘Almost always I was the only child on board. The other passengers, the ones I saw every day, were protective of me. Some of them believed there was an evil spirit living under the water. You know how people are – they believed such spirits were especially drawn to children. One day, after some heavy rain, we were caught in vicious currents. The boat swung like a compass needle.’ He took a swig from his glass, leaned forward for the bottle and poured himself some more. Then he pushed it across the table towards me. ‘It lasted a few minutes. Not even that. Seconds. But everyone in the boat was terrified. I was terrified. When we reached the other side they helped me down and set me on the shore. We were all safe, but something had galvanised their mood. I don’t know why. Possibly there were those who were afraid for themselves. Anyway, whatever the cause, something happened in those moments. One of the regular passengers, a woman, insisted on accompanying me home at the end of the day to speak to my aunt. I was nervous of my aunt’s reaction, but I dared not disobey an adult. I led the woman to the house where I lived. Compared to my aunt, this woman was well-to-do. My aunt could see it. She invited the woman in while I waited outside. I have no idea what was said. But from that day on my aunt stopped sending me across the bay, in fact stopped using me as her errand boy and sent me back to school to continue learning. She honoured the arrangement my father had made with her.’

  He sat still for a moment or two, thinking his own thoughts. Then grunted softly, as if he had made sense of the story or recalled his reason for telling it.

  ‘Now there’s a bridge. Built by the Germans. You can drive across to the city. Doesn’t take a minute. How about that?’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I cross that bridge every day.’

  ‘Ah, you live on the peninsula.’

  ‘Who was she? The woman?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea,’ he answered. ‘A good soul. Or maybe not. Just an ordinary woman who did one good thing. Either way, without her I wouldn’t be here now. I would have been more grateful if I’d had any idea of the favour she had done me.’ He jumped up, suddenly animated. ‘Let’s have some music!’

  ‘I should be going.’ I stood up.

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ he said. ‘In just a few minutes.’ He turned and disappeared into the house. ‘What do you like?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Fela Kuti?’

  Music was not something I cared for. I didn’t own a record pl
ayer, only a radio. I replied, ‘Yes, why not. Fela Kuti.’

  ‘Or your namesake?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Oh come on, Elias!’ He slipped a record from its sleeve, placed it on the turntable and carefully set the needle on the vinyl. Saffia entered the room, just as it was filled with the sound of Nat King Cole’s voice. Julius reached out his arm to catch her as she passed behind him, spun her around and back towards him. Even caught off guard like that, in Julius’s arms Saffia didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘You like the music, Elias?’ Julius called over to me.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ I managed. ‘Very much.’

  ‘Then you’ll come out with us one of these days. We’ll go to the Talk of the Town. Bring somebody.’

  Half an hour later, side by side in the Variant, we drove across the bridge. Either side the moon glittered darkly on the water. Julius said nothing but whistled the Nat King Cole tune. His whistling was off key, but he didn’t seem to mind or even notice. He dropped me outside my house and I thanked him.

  ‘Any time. Any time at all, my friend.’ He waved as he pulled away. Rather than turn the car, though, he continued straight ahead along the length of the peninsula, the long way round.

  At two in the morning I was still awake. My heart was thudding drily in my chest. Thoughts traced circles in my mind. I rehearsed different moments, parts of the evening’s conversation. For whatever reason I found myself thinking of Julius almost as much as of Saffia. Eventually I got up out of bed. I groped my way to the kitchen, found the light and turned it on and poured myself a glass of water from the tap. My notebook was there on the table. I sat down and jotted down a few details, in part because I feared I might forget them, but mainly because I needed to exorcise them from my mind.

  Finally I went back to bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

  Is that where it began? In the garden before the splendour of the Harmattan lilies? Or afterwards, as I watched the two of them dance together? Or weeks before at the faculty wives’ dinner? It’s difficult to say. Beginnings are so hard to trace. Perhaps we three would each put the beginning in a different place, like blindfolded players trying to pin the tail on a donkey.

  Three different beginnings. Three different endings, one for each of us.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Talk of the Town. I forget what brought me to pass by there a few years ago, but I found myself in the vicinity and wandered in through an unlocked door. It goes by some other name now, the fourth or fifth in however many years. I forget exactly. The Ruby Rooms, the Ruby Lounge? Otherwise nothing had changed.

  Inside, the same red carpet, mapped with dark stains and chewed at the edges. In the half-light the pockmarked velvet of the banquettes, peeling fake-wood surfaces of the tables, like one of the girls from outside the City Hotel in the cold light of morning. The dance floor seemed ludicrously small and even empty the place felt cramped; the air was foul, dense with the odour of sweat, sour beer and urinals. A piano stool stood alone on the platform, but no evidence of the piano. A man was stacking empty drink crates. He did not look up or take the trouble to greet me, sparing me the obligation of having to explain myself.

  Julius and Saffia and Vanessa and I. Thirty years ago. Together we stepped through the door and on to the lush red carpet. Four old friends to anyone looking from the outside. The atmosphere redolent with cigarette smoke, the vapour of strong spirits. Julius, carrying his jacket over his shoulder, led the way; Saffia and Vanessa followed close behind. I came last. I had heard of the Talk of the Town, though this was my first visit. Vanessa had been before, of course. Truth to tell I preferred bars, and visited them when I wanted to get out of my own space. Not to seek companionship; I preferred contemplation to conversation. And I had never liked, even feared a little, these kinds of public places. As I say, I cared little for music, and though I was a competent dancer, my talents in that direction had certainly never been remarked upon.

  Vanessa turned her head this way and that, trying to see who was there and also to reassure herself of the effect of her entrance. She wore a strapless yellow dress I had seen before, though on someone else. On her head she wore some kind of hair adornment held in place by pins stuck into her scalp. The whole arrangement was spiky and dangerous-looking. As she swung her head around it seemed, at any moment, as if Vanessa might catch a stranger’s eye, though not perhaps in the way she imagined.

  Someone who knew Julius stopped him and so I guided (herded) the two women onwards looking out for a table. It was moments such as these I disliked about being out in public. Thankfully Vanessa took charge of the moment, shooting ahead to where a group were just vacating a table. As they gathered themselves together she slipped through the throng, slid her bottom along the banquette and plopped her handbag on the table in front of her like a trophy. I followed, stepping aside to allow Saffia into the banquette, and then sat down opposite her on one of the stools.

  It was the first time I’d been able to look at Saffia properly all evening. They had collected us in the Variant, Saffia switching places to sit next to Vanessa in the back, while I sat up front with Julius. Now she leaned forward on to the table, pausing to inspect the surface and wipe it with a spare serviette before resting her forearms on the surface. Her arms were bare, she wore a cream dress with a scooped neck, large black polka dots, caught at the waist with a black belt, a matching scarf draped behind her. I noticed such things, most men don’t. Or so we maintain, at any rate, for fear it would diminish us to admit it, I suppose. But more than that, I remember every moment of that evening.

  Next to Saffia, Vanessa sat looking around, wearing a slightly sullen expression she imagined passed for sophistication. Saffia leaned forward and whispered something in Vanessa’s ear. And judging by the smirk that appeared on Vanessa’s face, I dare say Saffia was congratulating her upon her wits in securing the table.

  We ordered drinks. Saffia asked for a ginger ale. I urged her to accept a real drink. She shook her head. I told the man to bring her a rum and Coke, whisky for me. Saffia requested a Guinness for Julius, who had yet to reappear. My back was to the room, to the dance floor. The room throbbed with sound. Impossible to talk over the din. Saffia, seemingly unconcerned, leant forward, smiling, watching the dancers behind my head.

  Presently the waiter arrived with our drinks. Something scarlet and sticky, for Vanessa, imported and doubly expensive for it. I watched as Saffia sipped her drink, bending her head to the glass. She leaned back, caught my eye and smiled.

  ‘How is it?’

  Yes, she nodded and began to hum, moving her head to the beat of the music. ‘Julius says I have no head for drink. It’s true. Not like him. When we were students I used to drive them all home at the end of the evening. I never really acquired a tolerance for it. Now I am stuck with driving.’

  At least that is more or less what I think she said; what I caught were phrases, punctuated by the bass beat. ‘You studied together?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Engineering?’

  She cupped her hand around an ear for me to repeat myself. She laughed, leaning back into the seat, shaking her head. I felt foolish.

  ‘Botany,’ she said.

  ‘Flowers?’

  ‘Well, plants really. Plant systems, soil. That sort of thing.’ Her eyes slid sideways again, over my shoulder. Watching the dancers, or looking for Julius? Her hands were clasped on the table in front of her, the fingers interlaced. With the nail of her forefinger she began to trace an imaginary circle on the table. I looked at her and our eyes met, for the second time. I held her gaze, as long as I dared. She smiled and looked back at me, and then looked away. For a moment I was unable to breathe. I studied her profile and took a sip from my drink. From a different direction I felt the heat of Vanessa’s glare. I swivelled my stool around, showing her my back, and studied the people dancing.

  So you see moments later when Julius joined us at the table the currents between us all were fractionally altered
.

  Vanessa began to flirt with Julius, of course. Touching his forearm, whispering in his ear, wriggling upon the banquette in time to the music. Julius responded, after a fashion. The record changed, Julius and Saffia stood up to dance, and I, following his lead, asked Vanessa. I accompanied this request with a show of courtesy, helping her out from behind the table, and this mollified her somewhat. We followed the other two on to the crowded floor.

  Later we strolled on to the terrace, easing our way through tables of people taking a respite from the music, their faces glowing beneath the clarity of the moon. Julius seemed to recognise a good few people, or at any rate they knew him. He was the kind of person they call the life and soul of the party. Life and soul. Life and soul, without whom the rest of us collectively comprised nothing more than an inert corpse. Vanessa had found somebody, an age mate, a girl in a shiny black dress, and they were standing a distance away, whispering, shielding their lips from view behind the backs of their hands.

  Saffia and I were alone.

  A blind man sat with his back against the wall. She said, ‘Look at his smile. Why do you think he’s smiling like that?’

  ‘The music?’ I replied.

  ‘Yes, perhaps.’

  We both watched the blind man. He sat, a great smile on his upturned face. He wasn’t tapping his feet, or marking the beat with his hand. He was just smiling.

  Saffia said, ‘But do you notice how often blind people smile? Or don’t. Sometimes cry. I once saw a blind man in the street, the tears pouring down his face, he was quite alone. I thought about him for a long time; perhaps it’s a lack of self-consciousness, you know. They don’t realise people are watching them.’