by B. Nyamnjoh
“It would have been great,” he said, “to capture the VC and Reg lying naked across the main entrance of the university, dripping with ritual blood!”
This guy loves sensation, Lilly Loveless thought.
“If they feel so strongly about their land, can they be that wrong? There must be something to the fact that the VC and Reg would go to these lengths,” she challenged.
Bobinga Iroko smiled, superiorly, and said: “You don’t know the extent to which some would go just to hate. It is always in someone’s interest to promote enemies, real or imagined.”
Lilly Loveless didn’t know what to say in response, and she couldn’t understand why the VC and Reg should hate the very staff and students that made the university and their jobs as administrators possible. “Mimboland na Mimboland”, was all she found in her to say, which in turn gave her a satisfying feeling of penetrating her community of study.
Nodding, Bobinga Iroko added: “Hopefully, we will be luckier next time. We’ve decided to arm key students with digital cameras and camcorders, just in case. We mean business. These people have got to be exposed as the phoneys that they are, for the world to see…”
“I think you’re doing a great job at The Talking Drum,” Lilly Loveless complimented. “What’s your editorial policy, by the way?”
“What a question! Don’t you read our motto on the top right hand corner of the front page of the paper?”
“I do, but declared intentions are known to vary from practice like night and day.”
“We are as solid as the African bobinga and iroko and as constant as your northern star. Why do you think I am called Bobinga Iroko?”
“You tell me.”
“It means crushing resilience, steadfastness and commitment to the truth even in the face of crippling adversities. I’m proud to be associated with The Talking Drum, the finest in African journalism.”
“So what do you really stand for?”
“Simple: Everything that is clear is bent, everything that is bent is clear.”
“What?”
“We have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. We are tireless seekers after truth.”
“I see,” said Lilly Loveless, contemplatively. “So in many ways you are like us, social scientists?”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know we journalists love socialising. How would we come by stories otherwise?”
“Absolutely,” replied Lilly Loveless. “In the social sciences, we set out to expose the facts, the bare facts, the naked truth… We take everything with a grain of salt and make sure it rings true with other things we’ve heard or know…”
“What is so social about that? Why don’t you just call yourselves journalists of the sciences?”
Lilly Loveless chuckled. She almost told Bobinga Iroko that would not be respectful, as most social scientists loathe being compared to journalists, even when what they do is less than poor journalism. She was fortunate she didn’t, for Bobinga Iroko had a history of telling off university professors, most of whom he was convinced were nitwits, some of whom accused him of being sponsored to go after them. Few believed that his sole motivation was a professional commitment to exposing the facts, the bare facts, and quite simply, the naked truth. He didn’t either.
“As journalists we do more than mirror the society,” added Bobinga Iroko, proudly. “We seek to eliminate the ugly and enhance the beautiful.”
Reading the sceptical look on the face of Lilly Loveless, he hastily added: “At least we at The Talking Drum do.”
Suddenly Lilly Loveless remembered not having seen or heard of Dr Mukala-Satannie in the last few days. She asked: “Dr Mukala-Satannie, is he keeping well?”
“He’s fine, but he’s gone into hiding. He feels more and more like a lion in a cage. It was rumoured that the VC wanted him arrested.”
“What for?”
“Contempt of a public institution and its legitimate authorities.”
“Why not sue him in court if they feel he has done something wrong?”
“It is easier to arrest than to judge.” Bobinga Iroko was tongue in cheek.
“But they can’t harm him, can they?” She suddenly remembered that being a Muzunguland citizen and married to a wife employed directly and posted to Mimboland by the government of Muzunguland, Dr Mukala Satannie had immunities.
“No, they can’t harm him. His wife’s diplomatic status spills over to him generously. I told him this, but his cowardice denies him the courage to take chances.” Bobinga Iroko laughed and shook his head before adding, “We’re sick and tired of clowns playing God in our lives, and are determined to change this land of Mimbo, willy-nilly.”
Frightening place, Mimboland, Lilly Loveless told herself. She felt sorry for Dr Mukala-Satannie, and even more so for Dr Wiseman Lovemore.
“Don’t forget to take me along, next time you go to visit my friend,” she told Bobinga Iroko.
“I plan to go there tomorrow at midday with the deputy president of the trade union of university lecturers, Chief Dr Mantrouble Anyway.”
“Count me in,” said Lilly Loveless, thinking: What a name!
***
The drive to Sakersbeach was super. Lilly Loveless took in the beautiful scenery. The road was graced on both sides by hectares upon hectares of palms that reached into the hills beyond and that went all the way down to within a few kilometres from the Manawabay of the Atlantic Ocean. Bobinga Iroko told her the plantation belonged to the Mimboland Development Corporation, set up since the colonial days, and fed by a labour force harvested forcefully from the hinterlands, because of the erroneous belief by the Muzungulanders that the sons and daughters of the native soil were averse to hard physical labour and only engaged in it to satisfy basic needs. Because the Muzungulanders had hated to abandon what they’d spent so much energy and genius to bring about and to keep going, they had fought tooth and nail to ensure that independence changed nothing in reality. Thus, the management had stayed firmly in the hands of the Muzungulanders who had ensured that the labour force stayed firmly in the hands of the Mimbolanders. There was not a single year that the workers did not go on strike at least four times, and not a single strike yielded the desired results. Divide-and-rule was the order of the day at the plantation, where the handful of workers from the local ethnic group were often made to feed on the illusion that they mattered more than the majority ethnic others, and that it was in their interest to spy and report on “these troublesome cam-no-gos”.
“Why are they felling so many of the palms?” inquired Lilly Loveless.
“In order to renew the plantation,” Bobinga Iroko explained. “Every ten years or so, the older generation of palms have to be replaced by younger, better-researched and better-yielding palms. You have scientists working in laboratories all year long, experimenting on different new varieties in order to increase production…”
“What are those people doing with plastic containers around the felled palms?”
“Those are some of the plantation workers harvesting palm wine. It is a very popular wine known locally as Matutu. A glass of it is enough to knock you out. Ten times more powerful than Mimbo-Wanda, your favourite. Like to try some?”
“On our way back, perhaps.” Lilly Loveless didn’t want anything to stand in the way of her reunion with the beach.
They came to a check point, the third of the journey.
“Why are there so many checkpoints?” asked Lilly Loveless. This was a question she had wanted to ask since the drive from Sawang to Puttkamerstown. She remembered counting more than fifteen checkpoints that day of her arrival.
“In a land of Mimbo, security is paramount,” replied Bobinga Iroko, feigning seriousness.
“And why are the policemen and gendarmes at checkpoints always in pairs?”
“Because they are only minimally educated.”
“So the one who can read depends on the other who can write, and vice versa?”
“Absolutely,” sa
id Bobinga Iroko. “But they are also in pairs, so the one can snatch your car documents, while the other negotiates how much bribe you should pay to get them back.”
“That’s very clever, won’t you say?”
“Very clever indeed!”
“How come they don’t ask you for a bribe?”
“I have a “Presse Laissez-Passer” sticker on the windscreen of the car,” explained Bobinga Iroko, pointing at the white sticker with the national colours stamped on it. “And they all know me, and loathe having me write negatively about them in The Talking Drum.”
Bobinga Iroko drove her straight to the beach. “Watch out for very uncultured locals who comb the beach desperately seeking cultural freaks”, he told Lilly Loveless, a dry smile on his face. “You sure will be struck by their handsome forms, but there’s much more to life than good looks,” he exploded in laughter.
“Don’t ,” said Lilly Loveless. “I can take care of myself.”
“The Botanic Gardens and other touristic sites will have to wait for later,” he told her.
He dropped her off, agreed on when to come back for her, and went for his appointment to interview the topmost politician of the region on burning issues.
***
Lilly Loveless wasn’t disappointed in the least with her reunion. The beach would always have a place in her heart, day or night, under the sun or in the rain, crowded or quiet. She’d been to quite a few natural beaches in her life, and none has quite measured up to the scintillating encounter she had with the sun, sand and sea today in Sakersbeach. It was simply the ultimate dream come true – a tropical paradise in every sense of sun, sand and sea. What places the experience in a class beyond first is the fact that the view and tranquillity are not disturbed by the relentless flow of tourists in a hurry. There she was, lying on her back, reading leisurely, unperturbed. Not even by local youths seeking to string themselves to imagined milk and honey by playing love with lust. When it comes to nature, Mimboland is turning out to be a perfect paradise – mystical, inviting, fulfilling and taming.
This exquisite encounter with Sakersbeach took her mind back to Sunsandland, one of the African touristic destinations most celebrated in her native Muzunguland. The beaches were great, but she was never allowed to explore and enjoy them by herself, in her own way. There were all these beach bumsters who, in their daily quest to turn sand into gold, would not let her. They insisted they would force feed her not only with their own accounts of the local history, but also, with their own idea of what it means to have a good time as a Muzungu tourist in Africa. Theirs was a very very thin sketch of the tourist and her desires. They came with drugs, sex, love, and ambitions of Muzunguland in mind. The heavy presence of soldiers on the beach did not deter them. Those forced out of the beach, resorted to hanging around markets, hotels, nightclubs and other locations where tourists could easily be spotted and to whom they sold themselves as easy minglers and bearers of unhurried ecstasy for all in need of unwinding.
Never before had Lilly Loveless been the subject of such prying and preying attention. Being young, she was particularly attractive. Young men came up to her in fairly large groups, but she also attracted older men who were mesmerised by her youth. The harassment she got at the beach during the day, did not diminish when she was sitting at the hotel bar having a drink, taking a dip in the pool to cool down, or when she was at the nightclub, or walking on the streets. The glossy brochures that had come with her ticket from the travel agent had done more than exaggerate when they claimed it was possible for a woman to be alone at the beach in Sunsandland, sharing an ocean of emotions, with or without being on the same wave length.
Then one day she told herself, what the heck. Why not play along with one of them, and see what they’re really up to. She had been wedded to an appearance of honesty all her life, and had to mask her occasional manipulation of men to shower her with gifts. Her mom, who took her appearance of honesty for real, would never believe her ears, if she were to tell her one day, that right there under her nose in Bruhlville, she sometimes strips and lap dances for men. Not on a grand scale like some of her friends who have given up their degrees to become sex workers permanently, but something all the same, which she does not do for the money, but for the curiosity and thrill of it, and because she believes in a woman’s right to appreciate her body and use it the way she likes. She has been at war against social stigma from the day she was made to feel incomplete as a child following the divorce of her parents. Lilly Loveless has often wondered, “If it is poverty that pushes girls into doing this in Mimboland and elsewhere in Africa, then what accounts for it in my case, because I am not poor?”
But the bumster she eventually warmed up to wasn’t up to it. The first day they were supposed to meet at the restaurant. But he came early – to her hotel and called up from the reception, then came up to the room. He sat on the bed as she finished preparing to go out. She went to a mirror to add mascara to her lashes. She ran her fingers through her hair and sprayed gel on it, adding texture. With concentration she spread her lips, making them smooth, and applied lipstick, first to the upper lip, from the centre, then the lower lip, from left to right. Then she rubbed upper and lower lips together to smooth the colour in. She clicked the cover on the lipstick, set it on the table, and looked at her bumster to show she was ready to go. She was surprised when he said, “But you didn’t put any perfume on,” as if she were still only half dressed. He detested the restaurant – not in his habits – and was only too happy to return to the hotel room later on in the evening, this time for undressing. That was done hurriedly. Before she knew it, he was on top of her, sweating like a waterfall. And, because he refused to wear a condom, coming all over, flooding the silver ring on her belly button. When she asked him why he didn’t use a condom, he retorted: “If you want to take a bath and you put on a raincoat, can you really claim you have taken a bath?” Lilly Loveless didn’t know what to make of it.
To Lilly Loveless, nothing is worse than bad sex and nothing better than good sex. When she alluded to it later, he claimed the hotel had probably intimidated him. “Next time we’ll go somewhere I’m comfortable with, and you’ll see the difference.”
The next time came much sooner, the next day. They met for a drink. And he said he wanted her. It was evening. She mounted his motorbike behind him. And he steered across town to a discreet “restaurant of some kind.” He negotiated the price, and he followed her up the stairs, his hand fondling her buttocks, and murmuring something about liquid sensations and dreams. She sensed his excitement. The room was sparse, a bed with sheets and a few condoms, a Bible on the bedside cupboard and a candle on a table. She thought of lighting the candle to add some atmosphere to the place. But there were no matches. He was obviously perturbed when she insisted. And irritated came back from the reception with matches. Finally, they undressed. He took her, as he had done before. She doesn’t remember much. The experience was sparse, kind of like the room. After washing himself up in the bathroom and wiping himself off her with a towel, he began pulling his trousers on. She looked surprisingly at him from the bed, where she was resting up a bit. He saw the question in her eyes and said, “I only paid for half an hour.”
The man left her perplexed. On his way home he came by a billboard advertisement for a mattress that said ‘New Dimensions of Sleeping’. As the artist he insisted he was, he always had colour on him. He took a permanent blue magic marker from his bag and drew near to the board, crossed out the word Sleeping and wrote Coming below it. On the mattress he drew two intertwined ecstatic feet. And he continued on his way, wondering if she’d notice it on her way out.
That was that with the man who came early, and left quickly.
For this reason, their encounter ended even more quickly than it had started.
Then Lilly Loveless had another experience. She was lying in a hammock one night when an unattractive man of about thirty came to talk to her, wanting to take her out. “You look as if you
know what I need,” he introduced himself and suggested they go to a local bar nearby, where locally brewed gin was freely available at a suicidally giveaway price. “This is the place to mingle with the locals,” he added. She could see he was all fired up, a ‘come on baby set me on fire’ look steaming in his hellish eyes. She told him that she was worth more than a couple of gins, and he started talking real figures, but they were pittance so she told him to leave her alone. His friend came over next, a muscular, younger attractive man. And, as she soon found out, an excellent flirter and a delicious kisser. His manly lips were simply the best she had felt. He made magic with them. The excitement of kissing a man when every time is the first time was what swept Lilly Loveless off her feet.
There is something about Lilly Loveless and kissing. She simply loves kissing. To her kissing is not just a stop on the road to sex. It’s a whole experience in itself beckoning to be celebrated. She loves the intimacy, the closeness that comes with kissing. Sharing lips and sharing tongues thrill her beyond words. Whether it is short sharp pecks on the lips, slightly longer, open mouthed or tongue twister Muzungu kisses, she simply adores them. With the right person, her tongue is always ready for friendly fights, playing tongue battles, and tender licking. She is particularly scintillated when her bottom lip is sucked intermittently. When the back of her neck is kissed, she feels tingly all over.
Even when Lilly Loveless was not with him, she would be on the phone to him: “simply to let you know how much I enjoyed your kisses earlier today, after you finished zipping up my top. A tender one to the neck. A second… to my calf. And a third… to the air… Amazing … how the thought of the kisses is as real and strong as the kisses and kissing and being kissed itself… See you later Sweetie Pie…Ciao!”
Good kisser as he was, the bumster also expected Lilly Loveless to buy petrol for his motorbike or bendskin, beer and local gin, airtime for his cell phone, nightclub entrance fees, and the like, just because she found him handsome, had money written on her forehead, or appeared like a wallet on legs. Then the thought went through her mind: why am I kissing this man when I could be getting paid for it? He is attractive. We are on a palm fringed beach. Why not? Age is salient because my youthfulness gives me the freedom to pick and choose which men I want to kiss or do business with. Moreover, the fact that I am far from desperate means that I can do the manipulating, not vice versa. Here in Sunsandland, there are a lot of beach bumsters, many of whom hook up with old Muzungu ladies. It makes us laugh because all the contrasts are there: a white woman and a black man, a young man and an older woman, a rich woman and a poor man…
