The Gloaming

by Melanie Finn

  She is in her shop, almost a silhouette in the chiaroscuro light. Her chin is in her hand, the whites of her eyes very bright, her skin very black. The shop contains her and frames her like a Vermeer, with that densely suggestive narrative. She sees me but slides her eyes away, uninterested.

  Now the bitumen surrenders to the sand track. In the darkness I step carefully, trying to gauge the depth of the potholes. Jamhuri has put on the outside light. I call his name as I open the gate and there’s silence. I call again, louder, and finally he answers in a rush, ‘Mama! Karibu!’ and hurries around the corner to give me a salute. I can see the wrinkles on his cheek from where he’s been asleep. He escorts me to the door, and I step inside. I’m thirsty from my walk, so I go to the sink.

  There, on the sideboard, is the box, the flaps frayed, the messy knots of sisal string. Did I put it there? I feel certain I didn’t. But in the next moment, the next breath, I can’t be sure. Did I forget?

  Or is the universe arranging itself? Moving objects, shuffling them, dealing them like cards, ha ha ha: a cup, a child, a dog. If it can move a car toward a bus stop, it can surely move a cardboard box.

  Something flickers at the edge of my vision, like a face at the window in a horror film. I turn, look out. But there’s no one. Of course. Only Jamhuri, shuffling in the dry leaves of the tulip tree.

  And in the breathless silence I put out my hand to touch the box. But it moves through the cardboard—as if through a hologram. I pull my hand back and hold it with the other. Again, I reach out. This time I feel the rough paper, the shape of the box: corners, angles, planes.

  I go to the door. Step out.

  ‘Jamhuri,’ I say. ‘Jamhuri.’

  Arnau, April 19

  The cup, the black grounds therein. I almost welcomed the little routine: how I would wash the cup tenderly, and put it back in its place for next time. This was our slow waltz, a kind of courtship.

  But today: he hadn’t drunk the coffee. The cup was on the table, still full, the dark brew still lukewarm. The chair was askew. Not how he normally left it, neatly returned against the table.

  I went from room to room, trying to figure out if he’d been there, too. And what he’d done. I wasn’t ready for change. I was dwelling in time like a nest.

  Everything was just as I’d left it. As I lifted the cup from the table my sleeve caught on the chair and I spilt the coffee all over my skirt. I was a good housewife, and under the sink I kept a bottle of seltzer for such mishaps. I crouched down, pulled open the cupboard door. The seltzer stood among the extra dish soap, laundry detergent and white vinegar. But as I took it in my hand I noticed something else: a large roll of duct tape. The heavy silver kind.

  I hadn’t bought it. I was sure Tom wouldn’t have bought it. And even if he had—for some unimaginable reason, because what on earth would Tom do with duct tape?—I felt sure I would have known it was there.

  Perhaps Mr Gassner?

  I could hear both Gassners downstairs. The French doors were open to the first real spring day. Sounds drifted up, a stray Gassner cough, the clatter of cutlery being put away, the inevitable TV.

  Perhaps Mr Gassner, what? Came up here and put a new roll of duct tape under the sink?

  The plastic wrapping was intact. I held it for a while, wondering what I should do and what it could mean.

  I just put it back.

  Tanga, May 31

  Jamhuri leaves me at the edge of the track.

  ‘Just go, Mama. Someone will meet you, someone will take you to him.’ He is already backing away. He doesn’t want anything to do with this. He has no idea what’s in the box, but he knows it’s something important, something that brings a white woman to a lonely stretch of coastline with evening drawing close.

  To Mr Sese.

  The path leads into a grove of tall, thin palms. Goats nibble on patches of rough grass that manage to grow on the pale sandy earth. Beyond the palms, the path disappears into thick bush. I try to reassure Jamhuri again, but he turns on me with frightened eyes and hurries down the track. It is several miles back to the main road.

  I take off my shoes. The path invites bare feet with soft, yielding sand and the gentle sway of its route. I can just hear the sea. The leaves of the palms clatter in the barest breeze. Something of Jamhuri’s fear has stayed with me like a trace of his sweat on my skin.

  As I near the tangle of bush, a boy appears. He wears a white shirt, enormous on him, so that he seems a scarecrow. I sense I’ve seen him before, but there are so many ragged children. The boy looks at me with intense, unashamed curiosity. I am a blue elephant in a pink tutu. I am a circus grotesque wearing bells.

  ‘This way, this way.’ I know it can’t be the same boy from Butiama, only another boy saying the exact same thing. I see the shirt is torn at the back, almost entirely, revealing the sinewy black body beneath. ‘This way, this way.’

  The path threads the scrub, making sudden, inexplicable turns. After several minutes we burst onto a dry, white inland wash. Bicycle tracks crisscross the sand, originating from the low shed of a salt works on the other side. I imagine men with bare hands gathering the salt residue from the high tides, rendering it slowly in the steaming vat. I imagine the merciless salt on their rough hands.

  Halfway across the wash, there is an island of ragged trees. As we approach, I see ribbons tied to branches, strands of tinsel, bits of colored cloth. I glance around: we are alone. Except, of course, for the man in the trees.

  The boy looks at me again. Stares. Perhaps he’s never had the chance to examine a white person. Our skin is like the underbelly of fish. ‘This way,’ he says, gesturing to the island grove. I reach in my pocket, find some coins and hand them to him. He smiles and runs off across the sand, the gap in his shirt flapping open. I step into the trees.

  There is litter on the ground—the torn wrappers of incense sticks, empty bottles of rose water, shredded newspaper, dead matches, the caps of Sprite. The scrubby trees shed their leaves eagerly, and I smell the decaying leaves as well as the smell of the old man, which is—surprisingly—Old Spice. Mr Sese wears a Mao-style polyester suit, town shoes and thick glasses. He steps forward, shows me to a chair. ‘Madam, welcome.’

  He is not some mad-eyed Rastafarian in rags and beads. He looks like a librarian. ‘Would you like some tea?’ The flickering light glints off his glasses so that for a moment I cannot see his eyes, which are thick and pale with glaucoma. I can hear Dorothea: So, he has no medicine for that.

  Mr Sese offers me a cup in one hand, holding a large red thermos in the other.

  ‘It’s just tea?’

  He laughs, ‘Yes, just tea.’ He pours. ‘I cannot give you medicine without knowing your complaint.’ He sees I don’t quite understand. ‘Just as with your medicine, with mine there is a different treatment for a different ailment. Would you like me to test the tea?’

  I take a sip to make his point. Then I hand him the box. ‘This is why I’m here.’

  He opens the cardboard flaps, glimpses inside, and shuts the box with scrupulous objectivity. ‘And how did you come to be in possession of this?’

  I tell him the story: Magulu, Kessy, Dorothea. ‘She’s a doctor, a proper doctor, but still it frightened her.’

  ‘Madam, I’m an improper doctor and it frightens me.’ He peers over his glasses. ‘Your friend, she appreciated the powerful nature of this spell.’

  He puts the box down on the sandy earth. He considers his words. ‘This magic finds the person for whom it is intended.’

  ‘But I have it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I shake my head. ‘I only took it because they didn’t want it. Dorothea and Kessy. They were afraid.’

  ‘It was not for them.’ He is matter-of-fact.

  ‘Then who was it for? It came on the bus.’

  Did it? I think back. Was it a Thursday? Kessy said some children found it on the roundabout. And then Martin, and then Martin—

  Slowly Mr Sese shakes his gr
ay head. ‘Madam, the nature of such magic is very sly. It uses people. And it has come to you by whatever means. It has come to you.’

  ‘It wasn’t intended for me,’ I say, deciding to stand, to leave.

  ‘Then why have you kept it?’

  ‘Because of Dorothea. She asked me to help.’

  ‘You could have just thrown it away. As you don’t believe. Yet, you brought it all the way to Tanga. To me.’

  The boy, I think, the boy in the white shirt. The uchawi will direct you.

  This way, this way.

  ‘How can I throw it out?’ I look at Mr Sese. ‘It was a person. Isn’t there a ceremony? Can’t you take care of it? That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?’

  He puts his hands up as if to slow me down. Then he closes his eyes and mumbles under his breath. I’m relieved that he looks ridiculous.

  Finally, he opens his eyes. ‘They are okay, the dead. Don’t worry about them.’

  I take my wallet out of my bag. I’m pulling out two crisp, bank-fresh bills. ‘Is twenty thousand enough?’

  ‘But the living. The living are always the problem.’

  As he doesn’t take the money, I put it on his chair. I start away, and he says, ‘He is coming for you.’

  ‘What?’ I look back at him. He is a charlatan, chanting gibberish and cleverly deducing that a woman with a box of body parts might be disturbed and frightened. She is easily persuaded that someone might be after her.

  Is this Gloria’s work? Martin’s?

  His voice is low, a librarian’s whisper. ‘He has already come.’

  ‘Who? Who are you talking about? How much did they pay you?’

  ‘I will try to help. Yes, I will do what I can.’ He reaches out for me, and for a moment catches my hands, holds them in his. They are extraordinarily warm.

  But I pull away, hurry back across the salt pan. The wind has dropped, so the dusk is still and deep, and the light almost lavender on the white sand. I retrace my footprints and find the path that takes me to the track. I want to be in the white cottage, the door closed: home, this new idea. The act of returning home is redemptive: through the gates, across the threshold and we may begin again, we may be the better, wiser person than when we left; forgiven and forgiving.

  On the main road, I wait for a taxi. Surely, there are taxis on this stretch. But none arrive. I begin to walk into the quickening dark night.

  People watch me as I pass. But I can’t see them. They exist beyond the hem of light cast by buses and cars. I know they are selling dried fish and mangoes on wooden tables. They are laughing, dissenting over politics and the behavior of relatives. They are casting spells and buying curses. They are placing offerings in caves, among the roots of baobab trees, imploring, requesting, hoping for an alteration in the scheme.

  The taxi slows, dogs my heels from a dozen yards before I realize it’s there, a white Toyota Corolla. I peer in at the driver, but the headlights of an oncoming car blind me, stun my vision. I can’t see anything but the negative of the light.

  ‘Raskazone,’ I tell the driver. ‘Past the Yacht Club.’

  I get in the back. The taxi moves forward. There’s the smell of cigarettes.

  ‘How is old Mr Sese?’ Gloria asks chattily. ‘Has he been helpful?’

  She is revealed now, hands resting casually on the steering wheel. For a moment I say nothing. I clench my fists so that my nails dig into my palms. I feel uncertain: that odd wavering sensation. The coming in and out. O-o-o-o-o-o.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ I hear myself say this, as if from a great distance.

  Gloria takes a drag. ‘How did I know you were here? Magic!’ She makes a spooky ghost noise then laughs. ‘Jamhuri works for me, doll. I pay his salary.’

  We drive. The road dips and turns vaguely inland. We pass small villages, collections of huts, lit only by kerosene lamps. The lamps blink like fireflies. There are faces—pieces of people—and then only road in the headlights. For long stretches there’s nothing but sisal. Once neat rows gone to bush. The before and the after is relentless.

  Moving, we are moving over the roughshod road and under the trees, under the restless rustling trees. Through the dark town. Past the hospital, past the Yacht Club.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you about Harry like that,’ Gloria says at last. ‘He’s harmless these days. Defanged, declawed, sitting at the bar. It’s the self-pity I can’t stand.’

  Gloria’s smoke loops up like a genie. She carries on, she has what she wants to say, why she’s come to find me: ‘Life is full of sorrow and shittiness. But it’s what you make of it.’

  Now we are on the narrow sand track. A bearing has gone in the Corolla’s wheel, rattling like a stone in a tin can.

  ‘That’s what I’m getting at, doll. What have you made of it? What have you done? Have you done anything good? Anything beautiful? Have you created anything? Music? Art? Have you made anything better? Even in a small way? A small light in this dark world? Have you even been happy?’

  She throws the lit nub of the cigarette out the window. ‘You should ask yourself what the hell you think you’re here for.’

  I feel an odd narrowing, as if in my bones. A sense, I suppose, of intense definition. I am present.

  ‘Your small, selfish little life.’ Her voice leaks in a hiss of vehemence. ‘Your guilt, your poor little broken heart. So fucking pointless.’

  We arrive. There’s no sign of Jamhuri, but the gate is open. Gloria drives in, stops the car. I know it’s impossible, but there seems a momentary pause, a gap of total silence, between the dying of the engine and the rushing of the outer sea, the high tide surging in the mangroves. There’s a wrinkle in time. And then the earth lurches forward.

  ‘Get out.’

  I obey.

  She leans out the window. ‘It’s what you make of it anyway, doll.’

  The car starts up again, and as she pulls away, the broken bearing pings. Gloria switches on the radio to the tinny sound of Swahili gospel. We love God, God will help us, God-God-God, ping ping ping.

  A spark flies up from the muffler as it hits a rock. Only one tail light works, burning the dark like her cigarette, until it is extinguished by the bend in the track.

  I turn toward the house.

  The door is open.

  Arnau, April 21

  I opened the cupboard under the sink, a reflex, really. What I’d begun to do whenever I came back.

  This time the duct tape wasn’t there.

  I checked again, behind the detergent and spare bottle of dish soap. I stood and looked around, I felt it was what I should do. The kitchen. The living room. The small bathroom. Each revealed itself utterly normal. Dormant. The sofa wasn’t floating in the air. The toothbrush didn’t chatter.

  But the bedroom door was shut.

  The closed door formed a dull void. Only a sliver of light glistened from the narrow gap between the door and floor.

  I waited in front of the door. I placed my hands against it, palms flat against the grain.

  ‘Hello?’

  No one answered.

  ‘Hello,’ I said again.

  I listened for a shuffle, a footfall. I watched the gap to see the crossing of a shadow. But there was no one.

  I put my hand upon the handle, the round knob cool and smooth, an ergonomic fit. I turned it.

  The room was exactly as I had left it, the curtains open, the bed made.

  I thought perhaps that I’d closed the door by mistake, although I’ve never liked closed doors. Always the implication of what’s behind them.

  Perhaps the wind had closed it, a draft from another room.

  And then I noticed the arrangement on the bed.

  A plastic bag, the supermarket kind. Carefully folded.

  The roll of silver duct tape.

  A small swatch of fabric. About four inches in length. Red cotton flannel with white and yellow flowers. Individually, the objects were unremarkable.

  But as a trilogy
.

  It didn’t take me very long. My winter clothes I put in a trash bag in the basement. If Mrs Gassner found them before the trash collectors, she would sell them, for they were of excellent quality. I had so little else. All those years with Tom, the packing and unpacking, there was so little else.

  And I left.

  Left you.

  Carefully, without slamming the door.

  Tanga, May 31, 8:13 p.m.

  And now you stand at the entrance to this other house, on this other continent, and it’s as if no time has passed at all. As if we just stepped through the door at Arnau and onto Tanga’s sandy earth. You—my silent dancer—you are pale, almost translucent in this half-moon, sea-fractured light. Your hair is thin, you wear your raincoat and I think you must find it too warm. You are overweight in the way of middle-aged men. I recall how I saw you that night in Arnau. After my lover left. And I wonder if that is when you decided to kill me.

  I believe I know the smell of you, some part of my brain recalls it, the distinct yet subtle odor of your hate as you sat drinking my coffee in that pathetic flat. Where I stayed put like a well-trained dog.

  You watch me walk toward you, under the tulip tree, across the threshold of sand. You think how much thinner I look, almost gaunt. The sharper angle of my cheekbones, the outline of my chin and jaw. You can imagine the skull beneath my skin.

  ‘Sagen Sie nichts,’ you say, you plead. ‘Don’t, don’t speak.’

  This is the first time I have heard your voice. We don’t appreciate how a voice gives dimension. Perhaps this is why you don’t want me to speak: you want to control your interpretation of me, keep me paper thin. You are entitled to whatever you need.