“Putains!” the younger man shouts after them as they walk towards the pavement.
“They called us queers. I called them whores,” he tells his uncle.
“A curse on the whole world,” his uncle says, smiling.
They fall into silence.
“Are my parents well?” the younger man asks.
His uncle tells him that they are, although they will be better when he tells them of this visit, and better still when the younger man contacts them himself.
The younger man nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“So what now?” the younger man says after a few moments.
The older man says, “My suitcases are already in storage at the airport. I will fly tonight.”
The younger man doesn’t respond.
He is thinking about the journey his uncle has taken to get here. How difficult it must have been to find him. He is thinking that so many of the people he has met to get here, his uncle has met, and so many of the places he has visited, his uncle has visited too.
“You don’t want to stay a while?” he asks the older man.
“I’ve already stayed a while,” the older man says. “I had a wonderful time.”
“I understand,” the younger man says, and he does.
“Thank you, uncle,” the younger man says softly.
“Thank you,” the older man says.
Then the two men get up.
“Don’t stay away too long,” the older man says, brushing imaginary dirt off his trousers.
The younger man watches his uncle prepare to leave. The older man puts on his jacket, which his nephew knows will be too hot. His nephew notices the old clothes. He notices the five-dollar rubber Casio watch that his uncle takes out of his pocket to consult, since a watch can be too easily damaged on the end of a hand. He smells the aftershave that he knows his uncle purchases at Makola market, and that he has not smelled in a long time.
The older man picks up the plastic bag in which he has been carrying his wallet, diary, passport, baggage tag, ticket.
“Goodbye, Kwasi,” he says.
The older man embraces the younger man. For a long time they stand like this in the middle of the empty square.
Then the older man lets the younger man go, and without looking back walks out of the square, catching sight as he does of the woman on the other side of the road, who he is sure will recognize him from the Hotel Anton, and to whom he nods and smiles thinly and who nods and smiles thinly back.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Schwartzman was born in Johannesburg in 1973. He has held positions in the South African National Treasury, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation. He is the author of three books of poetry—The Good Life/The Dirty Life/and Other Stories, Merrie Afrika! and The Book of Stones—as well as an anthology of South African poetry, Ten South African Poets. Eddie Signwriter is his first novel.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Adam Schwartzman
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schwartzman, Adam, [date]
Eddie signwriter / Adam Schwartzman.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37892-7
1. Boys—Africa—Fiction. 2. Young men—Africa—Fiction.
3. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 4. Africa—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR9369.3.S32E33 2010
823′.914—dc22 2009019509
www.pantheonbooks.com
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1 - How Nana Oforiwaa Died
Chapter 2 - The Teacher’s Bargain
Chapter 3 - Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa
Chapter 4 - Big Henry
Chapter 5 - Eddie Signwriter
Chapter 6 - Festus Ankrah
Chapter 7 - The Teacher’s Walk in the Night
Chapter 8 - Man Traveling
Chapter 9 - . . .
Chapter 10 - Good Business
Chapter 11 - Paris
Chapter 12 - The Boats at Teshie
Chapter 13 - Le Refuge Clandestin
Chapter 14 - Bernadette
Chapter 15 - The Museum of Mankind
A Note about the Author
Copyright
Eddie Signwriter Page 27
