Nena has this talent of putting incongruous things together to produce a stunning effect. Their house is cluttered with driftwood, shells, Ethiopian headrests, monkey skulls, kilim carpets, Indian fabrics, dried flowers and whatnot. Nena can put a water lily in a glass next to a giraffe bone and make it look like Georgia O’Keeffe has just walked out the door.
Anyway, here she is in her beautiful house with her beauti-ful husband, the beautiful children in postbath attire, running around in pyjamas, smelling of soap. The table is beautifully set in candlelight and, if all that’s not enough, Nena is dressed to kill, her slightly faded Charlotte Rampling look, her dark hair propped up in a bun, little black dress and bright red high heels. She comes forward and leans to kiss me.
“Hi darling.”
She then turns to Claire and shakes her hand.
“Welcome. How brave of you to settle in all by yourself.”
I turn and look at Claire: she is slightly intimidated by Nena’s flair, she is probably thinking that her outfit may be too naive. Which is of course the case and the reason why I brought her here tonight: so that she doesn’t underestimate what she is in for. She’s obviously not aware yet that the Elspeth Huxley spirit faded out long ago.
The list of participants to this ritual is, once more, a true classic.
We have the Just-Flown-In American Film Writer, researching for a Hollywood movie on a secondary character from the Happy Valley scene. His name is Kevin Steinberg and he apparently has written the script of a Jack Nicholson film which none of us has seen. There is a stunning blond Danish aid worker whose name is virtually impossible to catch, on his way back home after seven months in Ethiopia. We have Allison and Richard Fagen, who run a project up north, close to the border with Somalia, who have been in the country for many years restocking local tribes with goats and camels. There is a middle-aged, rough-looking journalist from the Sunday Times I’ve met before, Ronald Bailey, on assignment on yet another story of corruption, the Old Man having made the headlines again last week re a fantastically expensive private jet he just bought in Texas.
I do the rounds and shake hands, leading Claire from one to the other, and finally land on the armrest of the sofa next to Miles.
“Claire, this is my very best friend Miles Sinclair, from the Guardian.”
“Hi Claire. I’ve heard so much about you from Hunter. Welcome.”
“Thank you.”
Miles checks out Claire from head to toe and I can tell the response is positive.
“Can I get you girls a drink?”
He comes back with two gin and tonics and lights a Sportsman, ready for the show.
“Hunter told me you and he spent a long time together in Rwanda,” Claire says gingerly. “I know your face from some photographs he has showed me. I think it was when you broke into an embassy in Kigali.”
“Oh right, the Canadian embassy.”
“Yes. You were drinking Dom Perignon straight from the bottle with some Rwandese commander.”
“The thing is that everyone had fled. We were very hungry, but we found only champagne in the basement. God, he didn’t show you those pictures, did he?”
“I thought they looked great.”
Miles loves to hear this. It’s like being a movie star and meeting a pretty girl who has seen all your films. You’ve already scored points without having to work at it.
They slide into war talk. Claire is eager to find out the insider’s viewpoint. This is the newest subject in her life; she needs to catch up.
Miles is major at telling stories, he’s an absolute pro. He’ll be amusing all the way through, enhancing the grotesque, the most trivial aspect of what it’s like to be in a war. He’ll never make the mistake of sounding heroic or brave, he won’t allow any distance between the listener and himself; no, he’ll keep you right on his side by making you feel that in fact there’s nothing so exceptional about what he has been through—it’s just men killing one another—and then, just when you’re starting to relax, wham, he’ll hit you in the face with some atrocious detail. Children’s bloated bodies piled in a toilet, an amputated arm hitting your windshield as you drive at night, the stench of death in an empty swimming pool. He’ll kill you in a second, make you feel the horror with a single stroke of genius: a true master of the coup de théâtre.
Miles is wasted as a hack, he should be a novelist, I keep telling him. He sometimes likes to hear it and sometimes doesn’t. He’s in his early thirties and has gone into three and a half wars, yet always manages to reemerge with his Peter Pan looks intact.
He’s still enjoying the momentum here. I guess it would be hard to give up the status of a Star of the Press in East Africa in exchange for the obscure role of another wannabe writer in Europe. Who could blame him: just this minute Claire is listening in rapture, nodding at everything he says. They are deeply absorbed in Hutu/Tutsi horror stories.
“We had exposed what was going on in the paper by then,” he’s telling her. “So we run into Colonel Bagosora in the lobby of the hotel, he’s the brain behind the ‘final solution,’ right?”
“Oh my God! And what did you do?” exclaims Claire.
“Well, you could see the dead bodies from the window, there were at least ten dead children lying in the back yard, right there.”
I’ve heard this too many times, I will have to move along with my drink.
I’m not trying to sound blasé. Just the opposite.
I remember when Hunter came back from Rwanda, how he used to drive me to tears. I don’t think I can bear to watch this scene—with Claire playing one of my earlier roles. The repetition is hypnotic, like watching The Cherry Orchard over and over again: the actors just shift roles as they outgrow their part.
But I am not jaded. It was very real. They did go to war.
Each time they went in I thought they would come back in plastic bags. Or not come back at all. I couldn’t sleep at night, it was so overwhelming.
But they always came back and got drunk or high or laid, and they looked just the same, except for a wilder look in their eyes.
They came to the dinner parties and we all sat, listened, nodded, and eventually got used to it.
Nicole walks in wearing the green dress she had offered to lend me, looking fresh as a nymph. She has brought along another Just-Flown-In specimen, the Young American Female Photographer. Her name is Linda something.
They all come and go in this town, they all do the same things, they always ask the same questions. It’s either a book, or a film, or a photo assignment. It’s either about animals or war or nomadic tribes. We all obediently display our virtues and our knowledge, we always make a point of sounding impeccably competent. We provide them with whatever they need: phone numbers, locations, Masai chiefs, prides of lions. We take them on safari, we drive them around for thousands of miles, we drink them to death. They usually leave exhausted.
When we go to Europe and look them up, they will sound excited over the phone and ask us to lunch, but invariably after that one time—once the few people you know in common have been thoroughly inspected—their initial enthusiasm will inevitably wear out.
You are their “African friend.” An item that will rapidly go off in the European climate. After all, realistically, how many dinner parties does it take before everyone has heard your story of the python chewing up your Jack Russell?
Linda, the young American photographer, is a midwestern beauty, the healthy blonde-verging-on-bovine type. Not knowing exactly what to expect from the soirée at the Elephant Man’s house, she figured she would be safe in combat gear, so she’s all khaki shorts and caterpillar boots, which is always a winning look if you have good legs. She does.
She and Claire, being the new entries, have instinctively ended up at opposite ends of the room in order to work their way into the new territory independently. Claire is working on the men; she’s now chatting to Peter and Miles about some new Iranian film which everyone is mad about in London at the mom
ent. She doesn’t know yet what a hopeless subject movies are in this country. She is getting plenty of attention nevertheless, being such a novelty. Linda, more bravely, has decided to test Nena, Nicole and me.
“I would like to move here for some time,” she announces.
“What a wonderful idea,” Nena says with a considerable lack of enthusiasm. She’s lying sideways on the sofa next to Nicole, who’s rolling a joint. I detect a slight reluctance in her voice, the reluctance one always feels here before investing time in people one is probably not going to see ever again.
“I have this project on women. I’ve talked about it to my publisher in New York and—”
“Women? What kind of women?” Nicole asks abstractedly, her eyes focused on the rolling paper.
“Circumcised women. I think the correct term is ‘infibulated,’ isn’t it?”
“Oh. I’m not sure about that.” Nicole lights the joint and coughs. “Nena, isn’t there a difference between circumcision and infibulation?”
“Yes.” Nena stretches her hand to help herself to the joint. “I think circumcision is when they cut your clitoris off and infibulation is when they sew up—”
“Whatever,” Linda cuts in. “In America we call it FGM, female genital mutilation.”
She adds this as if we were hot publishing executives she had to persuade to give her an advance on the spot.
Nicole stretches herself on the sofa, her legs leaning on top of Nena’s.
“Well, you won’t have any problems. There’s plenty of that going on here. Masai, Samburus, Rendilles, maybe still some Kikuyus—they all still do it, you know.”
I pass the joint to Linda.
“Want some?”
“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”
“There was this Frenchwoman, two or three years ago—what was her name again, Nicole?” Nena asks.
“Sabine?”
“Yes, Sabine. She came out here and she did exactly the same thing you want to do. Circumcision and all that. A wonderful woman. Didn’t she win a Pulitzer or something?”
“That’s right. Sabine. She won a Pulitzer,” I say.
“Oh.”
Linda looks dejected. Most probably her project back in New York had sounded like a truly original idea.
“You know, I’m not sure about this, but I think that only American citizens can win a Pulitzer,” she says with a hint of suspicion.
Nicole shrugs, exhaling thick smoke.
“I don’t know. Maybe her mother was American—”
“Or maybe it wasn’t a Pulitzer,” says Nena, entirely bored with this already, “but she definitely won something.”
“Something prestigious. I remember we even had champagne afterwards,” I add.
“It was a really wonderful book. I should still have it somewhere.”
Nena actually stands up and starts checking the bookshelf.
“Yes. You should take a look at it, I’m sure it would be interesting for you to see it,” says Nicole.
“Oh, I think I lent it to someone who never returned it.” Nena lands back on the sofa with us.
“Never mind,” says Linda. She looks at the three of us. We are completely stoned.
Nicole sighs, her eyes half-closed.
“Sabine. What an extraordinary person she was.”
“I wish she would come back.” Nena yawns. “She was such fun.”
There is another long pause. Linda lets the ice tinkle in her empty glass, smiling at us as she tries to figure out fast whether to hate us straightaway or to hang on and see if eventually we will get any nicer.
We are called to the table. Nena proceeds with her artful placement. She sits Linda between Ronald Bailey and Miles, who are discussing whores and clubs in Kinshasa. I get the Hollywood screenwriter, Kevin, who sets about interviewing me with the determination of a Vanity Fair contributing editor.
“So, do you live here?”
That’s always the opening line. Then there is how long have you lived here (seniority), what do you do for a living (authority), do you live alone (sexual innuendo). I answer obediently, I got my routine down long ago.
Claire has Peter and the stunning Danish aid worker at her side.
“Strips of impala?” asks Peter incredulously.
“Yes. You cut the skin in strips and then you patch the puncture with it. It sticks like glue,” says the Dane in his thick accent. He’s an expert on the subject: he rode his motorcycle all the way here from Ethiopia.
“It sounds great. The smell is the only thing that worries me.” Peter smiles condescendingly.
“That’s the point. It sticks when it rots. I promise you, it really works.” The Scandinavian Beauty pours wine into Claire’s glass as smoothly as an experienced waiter, swirling the bottle. She has been warmed by the wine and the excitement. The presence of men has revived her.
“Where do you find the impala’s skin?” she asks. “Do you buy it?”
Peter and the Dane laugh. They think it’s adorable of her to ask the question.
“First you have to shoot the impala, skin it, then cut the skin in strips.” The Danish boy sounds menacing. I picture him skinning cows with a Swiss knife whenever he has a flat tire back home.
“That’s quite an ordeal,” Peter admits. “Frankly, I’d stick to gum.”
Claire laughs, throwing her head back a little. She likes to flirt—and who wouldn’t, between those two.
As she takes another swig of wine, I see she will blend perfectly here. I can tell she has instantly perceived what this place is secretly all about: sexual tension. Not only does she enjoy that, but it’s clear she knows how to handle it.
Nicole and I exchange a rapid glance across the table. She’s squeezed between Bailey (now on the Metropole Hotel in Accra in the old days to Miles) and Richard Fagen (on the advantages of camels versus cows in the pastoralist culture to Nena).
Nicole leans across the table and grins at Claire.
“Tell me, Claire, what are you planning to do here?”
Claire straightens up, as if reprimanded by a schoolteacher, and swiftly puts the innocent look back on.
“Well, I thought it would be a good idea to look around first. Hunter said it will take some time before I’ll start to figure out the way everything works here.”
I can’t bear to hear his name pronounced by her with such familiarity.
“That’s very sensible,” says Nicole, “even though I’m afraid none of us has figured that one out yet.”
“I bet.” Claire laughs heartily. Such good technique, this girl.
“Anyway, my dream would be to work in conservation.” She adds with a shy smile, eyeing Peter, “I adore animals.”
Meanwhile, the American Screenwriter is hammering me nonstop. He wants to go back to his room at the Serena Hotel with an answer. Something he can fax back to Hollywood tomorrow which will make his research sound worthwhile.
“Why do you think Kenya has always had this tradition of—how should I say? Is it decadence? Eccentricity? I guess it’s romance. I mean all these extraordinary characters ended up here, why not in Tanzania?”
“I have no—”
“Exactly! Why do you think Tanzania is far less interesting? Anthropologically, of course.”
“Oh well, I don’t really know. Maybe because—”
He’s not even listening, he’s just throwing questions in the air.
“You see, the romance, this is exactly the point. It’s like a cocktail prepared with secret ingredients. There has to be the adventure, the strive for survival and conquest—there’s plenty of that in most African countries after all—but what makes this place special is the combination of that with sophisticated people. Hence the decadence, the incredible sensuality! Don’t you think?”
“I’m not really sure what you are trying to—”
“The romance is not created by the country in itself, but by the interpretation that certain people—shall we say intellectuals?—like Blixen or
Hemingway were able to come up with. They communicated the romance and created the mystique. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, personally I—”
“Otherwise”—he’s impatient now, and looks at me as if I have really exasperated him—“why would someone like yourself choose to come and live here?”
Miles ends up driving Linda and Claire home. I am too stoned to make it back in the dark, and decide to spend the night in the guest room. Nicole is the last one to leave. We end up in the kitchen with Nena for a last joint and a sip of scotch.
Nena shakes her head.
“It won’t last. I can tell you now. She’s not equipped for Hunter.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, hopeful.
“Too girlish, too naive. He’s going to be bored.”
“That’s what he likes about her. He loves to bully women. It turns him on.”
“She’s not dumb,” Nicole says. She’s sitting on the kitchen table, still looking fresh and sexy, post six joints, three gin and tonics, a bottle of wine and half a gram of bad coke.
“I talked to her. I hate to tell you, but she can be pretty funny.”
I look at her in disbelief.
“Funny?”
I can deal with sexy, I can even deal with clever. But funny kills me.
Nicole hops down from the kitchen table.
“Well, girls, I’m on my way. Esmé, why don’t you come around in the morning on your way home? We can have coffee together.”
At the door she whispers, “Darling, I beg you, get your humour back.”
“I just hope she dies.”
She kisses me good night and I stumble into my room. I slide into oblivion, then I hear her car start and go off in the night, her driving flawless and confident as usual.
I wake up at seven with a splitting headache to the sound of Nena’s children playing in the next room. It’s drizzling and it feels cold. It’s July, the African winter.
Rules of the Wild Page 7
