‘When I was a kid we thought Liberians were so cool. They had ice-cream parlours.’
‘You didn’t have ice cream?’
She shakes her head. ‘We had ice cream. You could buy it in the supermarkets and in the department store. But ice-cream parlours. That was something else.’
By Adrian’s reckoning they are not far from the old department store where he went looking for Agnes, which now seems so long ago. Adrian must have walked past this restaurant without ever guessing it was here. On the way down the street Mamakay suddenly ducked through a flowering hedge. In that moment Adrian had lost her, before he followed her through.
Here is everything he knows about her. She is a clarinet player. Or, as she would have it said, she plays the clarinet. For it is not a job. Her job is to tutor university students by the hour. The house she shares with two of the other band members. Hers is a small suite of rooms at the back of the house with a view of a yard of moss-streaked concrete and the neighbour’s dovecote. Mamakay had sat at one end of a long wicker sofa drinking her coffee, her legs tucked beneath her, while Adrian perched against a railing. The sound of the doves reminded him of home. The woman in the red headdress who greeted Mamakay with a trio of kisses is an old friend, Mary, owner of the Mary Rose. From time to time Mamakay waitresses here to help out.
That is all he knows. Also that she does not wear a watch, for all watches stop on her, as a consequence of which she is frequently either late or early. He would like to know everything about her, but she seems to have begun their friendship at an arbitrary point, dispensing with introductions and preamble. This makes him feel welcome. The place makes him feel welcome. The regulars sit at their tables, sip beer, eat the same plates of rice as Adrian and Mamakay. Nobody stares at him when he is with her. So he behaves as she does and asks no questions. He waits for the layers of her to be uncovered, by whatever wind their conversation is carried upon.
‘There’s a guy going around with a story about his daughter being bitten by a snake. He says the little girl is in hospital and he needs fifty thousand for the antidote serum or she’s going to die.’
A man with an almost identical story had approached Adrian on the beach two days before when Adrian had stopped for a beer. The child had been hit by a car, the man said. Surgeons were standing by to operate but he had no money to buy drugs. Adrian had dug in his pocket for half the amount and the American merchant sailor, newly arrived the week before with whom Adrian had shared a few words of conversation, had given the rest. Afterwards the sailor had shaken his head as they watched the man walk away. Shit!
‘Mary says she’d had three customers who have given him money in the last week.’
In the corner Mary holds up four fingers as she continues to count. Adrian is silent.
‘I think it’s ingenious,’ says Mamakay. ‘He deserves the money.’
Mary shakes her head. ‘Give money to that thief? Better give it to me first.’
‘He’s not a thief. He’s a con man and a good one. All he’s doing is trying to survive.’
‘We’re all trying to survive,’ answers Mary, licking her finger and counting off notes. ‘Anyway, I heard somebody called the police on that one.’ Wan, the way she says it.
‘I was near the peninsula bridge. I saw a thief caught by a crowd,’ says Mamakay. ‘His shirt was torn. I think they’d already roughed him up a bit. He was trying to get away, walking. Walking, not running. He knew, you see, that if he started to run it would set them off. They’d go after him like animals. They’d kill him. He crossed the street in front of the taxi I was in. Someone shoved him in the back. It was beginning. The expression in his eyes. He knew he was probably going to die.’
‘What happened?’ asks Adrian.
‘A UN peacekeeper was near by. Though I wouldn’t have liked to be in his position. He was armed, at least. Afterwards nobody in the taxi had any sympathy with the thief. They wouldn’t have cared if he’d been lynched.’
‘Stealing from your own people,’ tuts Mary, whose ability to count money at speed and still follow the conversation impresses Adrian. Her fingers flick through the notes faster than the eye.
‘Don’t you think it’s strange?’ continues Mamakay. ‘The government stole from their own people for decades. They’re still at it. Did people say anything? Did they protest? No. Their children dressed in rags and went hungry. Nobody stood up to those men. And yet a poor man would be lynched for stealing tomatoes.’
‘So it goes,’ says Mary.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ says Adrian. Displaced anger, one of the most brutal paradoxes of exploited people. The tomato thief paid the price for the Minister’s Swiss bank accounts.
‘What were you told had happened here? Before you came, that is?’ asks Mamakay turning to him. ‘Ethnic violence? Tribal divisions? Blacks killing each other, senseless violence! Most of the people who write those things never leave their hotel rooms, they’re too afraid. And wouldn’t know the difference between a Mendeman and a Fulaman. But still they write the same story over and over. It’s easier that way. And who is there to contradict them?’
‘What would you say it was?’ asks Adrian carefully.
‘It was rage. It wasn’t a war, what happened here, in the end. It was fury. Having nothing left to lose.’ She leans back and looks around the room. ‘Can we have some coffee, please, Mary?’
Adrian remembers Ileana’s words to him the day they first met. Nothing to lose.
When the time comes to pay the bill, Adrian pulls out his wallet, but Mamakay waves the money away. ‘Mary owes me.’
He looks at Mamakay, leaning back in her chair, her gaze following Mary as she does the rounds of customers. Mamakay’s wide-apart eyes, her softly shaped nose, her hair braided into a knot at the crown, her neck exposed down to the neckline of the cream T-shirt she is wearing. Any moment now she will look round at him and their gaze will meet. And she will know for certain what he is thinking. He must not let that happen. He searches for something to fill the silence, but no words come to him. His brain is too crowded with emotion. At that moment she looks round, straight into his eyes. Her lips are parted, about to speak. But she says nothing. There is the moment of recognition, realisation behind the light reflected in her eyes. Adrian drops his gaze.
They part on the street corner, and he watches her go. She walks swiftly, picking her way along the uneven pavement. He will see her the next morning, maybe, when he delivers water. This small hope is enough to carry him through the afternoon.
Adrian spends more and more time at the mental hospital, helping Ileana restore lost records, those burned or otherwise destroyed during the invasion. In this he is helped by Salia, who keeps the names and history of every patient who has passed through the hospital logged in his memory. Adrian interviews patients one after another. Hours spent listening to delusions, fears, anxieties, dysfunction and dreams, confirming a diagnosis where possible, classifying them accordingly. In this new role Attila seems more inclined to him, less resentful of his presence. They have even conversed once or twice. Adrian finds pleasure in having a structure to his day, pleasure in the respect in the eyes of the attendants, pleasure in Salia’s acceptance of his suggestions. So, and for the moment, Adrian is content to occupy himself with this work. Though on his way to and from the hospital he scans the crowds like reels of silent film: people crossing the road, gathered around stalls, waiting for transport, the beggars and madmen, he scans them all for Agnes. He can’t help it. He never finds her, never catches a glimpse of the yellow-and-black lappa, or the T-shirt with the dolphin, her slender bowed form.
Returning home the day of his lunch with Mamakay, Adrian passes Kai standing by the roundabout in the centre of the town. He sounds his horn, waves and pulls over. Kai climbs in.
‘Thanks.’
‘Lucky I saw you,’ says Adrian. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, this and that.’ Kai looks away, out of the window. Adrian has learned t
o recognise these moments, wonders if Kai has any notion at all of how unsettling his abruptness can be. Still, Adrian’s mood is good and cannot be easily shaken. He looks across at his friend. Kai’s face is drawn, as if all the features had been dragged down. He is resting his head on the windowpane, his forehead bumping against the glass, letting the sights outside slide over his eyes. Adrian has not seen him in days.
‘Want to stop off for a beer?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
Through Mamakay the landscape of the city has altered for Adrian. For the first time since he arrived, the city bears a past, exists in another dimension other than the present. Places he passes, the Mary Rose, the water pump, already hold memories. Growing in confidence in the city and his place in it, Adrian heads out of town towards the Ocean Club. And because the Ocean Club, like so much else, makes him think of Mamakay and he wants nothing more than to talk about her, he says, ‘I tried a new place for lunch today – the Mary Rose. It’s good.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Kai is still facing away from Adrian. ‘That old place.’
‘You know it, then?’ says Adrian, disappointed.
‘Sure. Haven’t been there for a long time, though.’
Adrian turns his concentration upon the road, tries to hold on to his lightness of mood. At the junction by the petrol station the same traffic policeman he has seen before stands waving his arms. As they approach he holds up the palm of his hand. Adrian comes to a stop and puts on the right-hand indicator.
Next to him Kai sits up. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the Ocean Club. Is that all right?’
‘You want to keep straight.’
Adrian shakes his head, he knows different now. The city has begun to unravel itself for him, he is becoming privy to its secrets and ways, the geography of its contours. There are two routes to the Ocean Club.
‘If we cross the peninsula bridge and take the beach road there’ll be much less traffic. It’ll be backed up at the other end of this.’ He hefts the steering wheel over a few inches, bringing the car into the middle of the road, just enough to shift the vehicle out of the way of a lorry bearing down from behind.
‘For Chrissake!’
‘It’s OK.’ Adrian smiles, thinking Kai doubts his driving skills.
‘I said stop! I don’t want to go that way. Would you just do as I ask and drive on?’
This time Adrian hears the effort at control in Kai’s voice and turns briefly to regard him. Kai is sitting forward, kneading his forehead with the tips of his fingers. A vein stands out on his neck, a node visible beneath the skin. He doesn’t look at Adrian but stares straight ahead through the windscreen. He looks terrified.
‘Of course.’ Adrian checks the mirror and swiftly re-enters the traffic. From the tail of his eye he sees Kai lean back, place his hands squarely upon his thighs, his head upon the headrest, eyes half shut.
Inside the club Kai disappears into the toilet. Adrian finds a table, and orders two Star beers. He thinks about what just happened in the car. Kai had genuinely panicked at the thought of taking the bridge road, or it seemed very much like it. Adrian tries to think of whether they have ever taken that route before, and realises they have not. If anyone drives it’s usually Kai, or else they take a taxi and Kai is the one who negotiates with the driver. Minutes later Kai joins him, pulls a chair out from the table and turns it around to straddle it. He sits with his elbows on the table, drinking his beer. Adrian watches him for a moment.
‘How’s Abass?’
‘Yeah, he’s good. Little man’s good.’
‘He’s a great kid.’
‘He is, he is.’ Kai shakes his head. He raises his beer bottle to his lips.
It is early yet, and there are no other guests, just a Middle Eastern-looking man at the bar, who may or may not be the owner, and a younger man knocking balls on the snooker table. Outside the tide is on its way in. The crabs are out, high on the dry sand, old men watching the advancing sea. Below them the sandpipers perform their quickstep with the surf, eight steps forward, eight steps back. A young brown-and-white dog appears, dashing across the sand, scattering complaining crabs in every direction. The sandpipers, caught between the sea and the dog, take briefly to the air and regroup a dozen or more yards away. Adrian smiles and looks around at Kai, but Kai is staring at a spot on the floor, drumming his fingertips on the table. A single knee jerks up and down.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Sure, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You just seem a bit restless, that’s all.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Kai stops drumming and sits up, then stands and swings the chair around to face the correct way. He sits back down. ‘No, I’m OK. Just haven’t been sleeping too well, you know how it goes.’
Adrian remembers the first night Kai slept over at his apartment, finding him sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes wide open, lost inside some dark dream. Since then Adrian has woken in the night more than once, aware of a restlessness in the apartment, of soft footsteps, of objects being moved, the sound of sighs.
‘Are you doing anything about it?’
‘You mean am I taking anything? No. I’ve tried once or twice. The pills stopped working a long time ago. No, man. It’s one of those things. Just have to see it through.’ His gaze shifts away from Adrian again.
‘There are other things, relaxation techniques. It might be worth –’
This time Kai interrupts him. ‘Thanks, man, but I’m good. Really. One night’s sleep and I’ll be right back.’
‘I was just saying …’
‘Yeah, got you. I’m fine. Here I am relaxing, see?’ He stretches out his legs, takes a deep swallow from his bottle and places it with deliberate care upon the table, but nevertheless misjudges the distance so the bottle knocks against the hard surface.
They sit in silence again. Adrian is used to Kai’s silences, his indifference to the kinds of courtesies and pleasantries Adrian was raised to observe. He is even, at some level, faintly awed by the way Kai is, feels himself by comparison to be too eager to please. All the same the mood has shifted.
‘Another?’ Kai has drained his bottle.
‘Sure,’ Adrian replies.
Kai holds up his hand for the waiter.
After the man has gone, Kai returns to drumming his fingers on the table, staring moodily at the wooden surface. Behind him two early drinkers stray into view. Dressed in identical grey slacks, white shirts and ties, they wear their hair close-cropped and each carries an attaché case, a name tag on their right breast. Adrian watches as they place their order. The waiter returns with two Coca-Colas and Adrian silently congratulates himself on his guess. Mormons.
A few more arrivals are drifting in, among them Adrian sees Candy and Elle. They haven’t met since the afternoon at Ileana’s house. Adrian thinks Candy may have seen him because she looks in his direction, but as she does not acknowledge him he cannot be sure. The two women are accompanied by a short, plump African man, with clownish features and an arm around each of them. Adrian looks at Candy’s skinny haunches and broad shoulders, Elle’s narrow mouth and small teeth. He thinks of Mamakay, of her hips in the old sunflower dress she wears to fetch water, the outline of her lips, and her nose, the shallow, inward curve of the bridge, the almond-shaped nostrils. The man’s hand slides down the arch of Elle’s back towards the faint swell above the drop of her buttocks.
Seeing them reminds Adrian of the girl in the purple top the night in the beach bar; he had noticed her as he sat and waited for Kai. The girl had been leaning her body against a Western man. Adrian had watched her and fantasised briefly about what it would be like to have sex with her; she’d turned and caught him staring at her. With the memory his reverie is arrested.
What does Mamakay think of him?
He has no idea.
CHAPTER 31
Three o’clock the previous Friday, Kai arrived at the US Embassy and stated his business to the marine in the glass booth at the f
ront gate. The marine pointed to a long line of men standing in front of a hatch on the outside wall. ‘Green-card lottery right there.’
Kai shook his head. ‘I’m a doctor, a surgeon,’ he said.
‘One moment, sir.’ The marine leaned forward and pressed the buzzer to allow him through the security gate. ‘Office at the end of the hall. Have a good day.’
As he was leaving Kai passed by the queue of men in the street. The line appeared undiminished though he’d been inside the Embassy building for thirty minutes. The men were young, the youngest perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Lean or muscled, dressed in jeans and T-shirts.
From the Embassy he’d strolled up the street to the roundabout. He’d been standing there only a few minutes when Adrian caught sight of him.
That was Friday. Today is Sunday. A Sunday in April. April Fools’ Day, no less. He knows this because he has written the date on the top right-hand corner of the aerogramme, but also because he can see Abass sneaking around, up to no good. At this very moment the boy is peeping around the corner, checking Kai’s whereabouts and imagining himself invisible.
The trouble with Abass is that he’s incapable of keeping a straight face. Kai had already helped a bewildered aunt into her room after she struggled in vain to grasp a doorknob greased with Vaseline. Abass had been stalking the old lady since breakfast.
Kai bends back to the letter. Tejani’s last letter mentioned the new girlfriend, what was her name? Kai reaches for the crumpled blue paper and smoothes it out, begins to read it over. Tejani wants Kai to join him in America. Two years after they said goodbye, it looks like Kai is finally coming. Tejani is his best friend, the person he has been closest to most of his life, with the exception only of Nenebah. There had been three of them. Always three. Tejani was the third lover, or was it Nenebah? Sometimes Kai saw himself at the centre, best friend to Tejani, lover to Nenebah. More often he’d seen Nenebah as the centre. They’d both loved her, after all. Tejani left. A year later Nenebah and Kai were no longer a couple. Might it have been different if Tejani had stayed? Kai doesn’t know.
The Memory of Love Page 30
