“What a sad man.”
“This sadness is charming, no?”
“I met his parents in Nairobi. They told me to tell him to come home for Christmas.”
“They say that every year.” Ali smiled. “Danny hasn’t left the island for years.”
CHAPTER
9
The New Arrivals
Stanley Wicks had started to dream. He had not dreamed since he was a child, and he had almost forgotten about being a child when these dreams brought back the terror and the wonder of uninhibited, uncontrollable situations. The difference of late was the subject matter. His dreams now had aspects of reality, characters he recognized, places he had been. But all jumbled and mixed and horribly changed: vivid narratives that made so much sense they threatened his waking hours with their palpability. It could have been the heat, he thought, that made the days more dreamlike and dreams more like something real.
That night he had dreamed of Daisy. In the morning she seemed to know it too, watching him through slitted eyes as he poked an egg yolk and cut his toast. “How about spending time with Harry today?” he suggested, without looking up.
He sliced into his egg white and placed it on top of the toast. Daisy turned from her husband to his plate and stabbed his egg with her fork. “I’m ravenous. Where’s the boy? Jackson?” she called, pouring milk into her coffee. In a voice that was more like a low growl, she said, “Don’t start with me, Stanley.”
“I just thought it was natural for a mother to want to be with her child.”
Daisy made a sound, almost a snort. “What’s natural? You tell me, Mr. African Primitive. Isn’t it natural for husbands to want to fuck their wives from time to time?”
Stanley reddened. “We’re discussing Harry, darling. I’d like to continue, if you don’t mind.”
“And who appointed you to the motherhood police?”
“Daisy—”
Daisy held up her yolk-covered fork. “If you keep on, you’ll ruin both of our days. I want you to leave it alone for now, all right? Can you do that for me?”
Stanley studied his wife. She was fat. She had been fat since the pregnancy. The extra weight had done nothing for her face: the delicacy had been ballooned out of it. With a sunburn, it looked almost blistered. Her eyes were puffy from sleep and the blue color of the irises shot out in small, angry rays. “Jackson!” her mouth yelled harshly. “Damn it, where is that boy? They jump when you call, you know. They don’t seem to hear me at all.”
Stanley had married beneath him. The knowledge of the mistake was still settling in. He had been stuck in a leaky capsule with Daisy for seven years and finally felt he was being forced to escape and swim up for air. He had been warned by his mother and gently pitied by his peers, and he had shunned them all. All the family propaganda he had ignored haunted him now. They had been right: his wife was proving to be somehow deficient.
For the last few months, he had been considering their marriage. Outside the bedroom, they had always had little in common. Daisy had feeling only for status, not people. What she wanted was to get above positionless people and stay there. She had the unpleasant habit of avoiding the eyes of her subordinates, giving them orders without looking at them. To a degree, Stanley understood. Daisy sprang from the dangerously amorphous middle class, the class as big as an army, rabid with envy. These were the people who worshiped the royals and criticized them simultaneously, speaking with a frightening intimacy. There was unity without loyalty in their ranks. As soon as she secured her place above them with her marriage to Stanley, Daisy had denied ever knowing they existed.
Things had more or less held together until the pregnancy, but Daisy had panicked when she began to lose her shape. She had fought with her weight most of her life, and her figure, while good when she met Stanley, was newly won. Much to Stanley’s surprise, in the natural process of getting bigger, something happened to Daisy’s emotional stability. She disowned her body. It was as if a few layers of skin had fallen off and a vulnerability had been exposed, a grotesque weakness that disgusted her. Stanley watched the transformation with morbid fascination. Her vanity seemed to sharpen and then puncture her ego. What made him want to run was her response to her pregnancy, how easily and artlessly she had let herself go to ruin. There was nothing underneath to support her, no structure or fiber to prevent it from happening. She was common after all, common in her self-loathing. It was only when she had abandoned all pretense that he had allowed himself to recognize his mistake.
That night, he dreamed that she had trapped him in a dank underground place with rats and filthy pools of water, the ear-shattering noise of trains running above, one after another, shaking the ground and disturbing the putrid pools. But there was no train below to take him out. He was stuck with only his wife. And she was there, sitting in bed with food laid all around her, laughing. Laughing and eating. “How do you like our home, Stanley darling?”
Stanley shivered, despite the heat. He unzipped his hip pouch and rubbed some of Daisy’s Elizabeth Arden sun factor 35 on his nose. Both were fair and burned easily, only he didn’t want to blister.
By two o’clock, Stanley still could not think of a reason to leave the bar at Salama. It was too hot to visit Kitali, and the workers would be sleeping, anyway. At home, Daisy was waiting feverishly for the afternoon flight from Nairobi. By now she would be sitting on the roof, slathered in sun-tanning oil, scanning the sky for the Cessna. The Cessna brought essential things from the mainland: mail, booze, American cigarettes. Today it was to bring a larger “essential,” ordered and bought sight unseen—a masseur named, Stanley couldn’t remember, something ridiculous like Adolpho. Not just a masseur, Daisy insisted, but a body worker. He was, she declared, a healer. “He’s going to heal me,” she said.
“Of what?”
“I’m not well, Stanley, in case you hadn’t noticed. Look at me! I’m fat and unhappy. I haven’t been myself since the baby was born. Relaxation and physical manipulation through touch is the best, most natural way to heal. I’ve read it in many magazines. The curative powers of touch, the touch of someone who knows how to touch. Adolpho has told me that he can stimulate my thyroid gland and boost my metabolism. I can get back to normal shape in no time. And if you’re worried about the money, think about the savings on food and booze. I will be adding years to my life. No more cigarettes, either. That should save a load right there. Do you know what we spend on cigarettes alone in a year?”
“Probably less than it costs to have an in-house body worker for the season.”
“Far less.”
So there was no argument.
Stanley lit a cigarette and perused an old paper. After a while, Ali sat next to him and had a beer. “A beautiful woman has come to the island,” he announced.
“How do you know?”
“I have been escorting her. She may belong to the professor, but I don’t think so.”
“So, Ali, are you going to lie in wait, like a shark?”
“Sharks never stop moving. They can’t lie in wait,” Ali said, remembering that Wicks was, unlike Finn, a real white man. A real mzungu who knew nothing of fish.
Finn arrived and ordered a sandwich and a beer. After greeting each other, they sat for a while in silence. “How’s it, Stanley?” Finn finally said.
“Oh, fair.”
“Hotel coming along?”
“Rather like a snail. Do you have snails here? I don’t think I’ve seen one. They’re delicious with butter, bit of garlic and parsley.” Stanley rested his eyes on Finn’s food.
“Hungry, Stanley?” Finn asked, offering his plate.
Stanley helped himself to Finn’s sandwich and ordered another beer.
“Finn, aren’t you friendly with that professor fellow?”
“Friendly, I don’t know.”
“Is he right in the head?”
“A fair question.”
Because it seemed Finn might impart something more, Stanley swallowed his
bite of sandwich and washed it down with half a bottle of beer before he moved on to the next question. “What’s he doing here, anyway?”
Finn finished his meal and wiped his face with his napkin. “What’s bothering you, Wicks?”
“A longish story.” Stanley had kept Templeton’s letter in his pocket, where it stayed because he could bring himself neither to reread it nor to throw it away. Templeton’s words had disturbed him, transforming the otherwise innocent happiness of island life to something potentially sinister.
“Is it your hotel?” Finn was asking.
Stanley shook his head, finished his beer, and proposed another round. “My wife has bought a masseur,” he said miserably. “A man who rubs naked bodies with oil. He’s arriving today.”
Ali chuckled. “That should help things at home.”
“I’m going to avoid home, I think.”
“You already avoid home,” Finn said.
“I suppose I do. Just now I wish I could find another place to sleep.”
“Sleep on your boat.”
“Now there’s an idea. But Nelson farts like a hippo.” Stanley picked at the Tusker beer label. “She calls him a healer, of all things. He has a ridiculous name. Adolpho or something. Where do you suppose a man named Adolpho comes from?”
“It may be just the thing, Stanley, this Adolpho,” Finn said. “Take the pressure off you, anyway. And he’s a professional, isn’t he? Let him do his job and see what happens.”
“It makes me unhappy, the whole business.”
“Oh, now, cheer up. The sun’s shining, and look, here comes the dhow from Tomba.”
“Adolpho is on that dhow.”
“But I also see some long hair. A new batch of women, looks like.”
Ali grinned. “If Daisy can play, so can you.”
“It’s not how I thought it would be.” Stanley turned backward on his stool and faced the approaching dhow. Perhaps they were right. “Have you seen that girl on the terrace?” he asked.
“Yes,” Finn said.
Ali piped in, “That’s the one I was telling you about.”
“I like the looks of her,” Stanley said. “She’s decently dressed anyway. What happens to women here? They come and the first thing they do is rip their clothes off. It’s as if no one’s watching because they’re in Africa. Someone should tell them it isn’t decent. Not even here.”
“You won’t get much help on that, I’m afraid.”
“Do you enjoy seeing women bare their goods for the world, Finn?”
“I don’t even see it anymore.”
“But does it appeal to you as a man?”
“Depends on my liquor intake.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with anyone steady.”
“Yes, well, I haven’t gone hungry, Stanley. Don’t worry. The girl on the terrace—I think Danny’s made a bid on her.”
“Danny? Is he capable?”
“That’s not the question. He likes her. I think she reminds him of England. Like you. She’s all buttoned-up.”
Stanley stayed at the hotel through dinner, which he ate alone on the terrace. How ridiculous that someone could bid on a woman! If he had the opportunity, he would ask her to dinner. He wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
He lingered over his coconut ice cream and coffee, and when they were gone, decided it was a cognac night. The deep amber color of the liqueur returned him to the memory of cognac nights past and the rich expanse of a life that was still unfolding. His life. He took out Templeton’s letter and studied it in the candlelight. Manufactured deities, for Christ’s sake. What did he mean by that? The church had always been a political institution. It had no choice. It was that way in all civilized countries, England being the first; church and state vying for a limited amount of funds and power. Of course there were moments of malfeasance, ignoble but necessary. Perhaps this man had missed out on the lesson of realpolitik. Perhaps he had missed a century or two.
At midnight, he headed home to where Adolpho was being paid to sleep in his house. He sniffed around the house, convinced it already reeked of foreign matter. To his horror, the refrigerator handle was covered with grease, as was the handle to his bedroom door and the bathroom faucet. Stanley smelled the oil residue on his hand. It smelled vaguely like marzipan, a sickly-sweet almondy smell. When he turned the light on he saw there were oily footprints on the floor. Daisy’s feet and larger Adolpho feet. Stanley felt ill and angry. This oil might corrode the varnish on the floor. Harry might somehow ingest it. It was unclean and it smelled vile. Where would he sleep? In the bed with his oil-coated wife? Think of the sheets!
Stanley paced as he smoked. He had been subtly ousted from his own house. Like Tsar Nicholas, whose place had been usurped by Rasputin when he was off at war. Noble Nicholas had been replaced by a smelly, hairy yeti of a man. Rasputin had also claimed to be a healer. Sure he had special powers, Stanley thought. Screwing his way to the top. An old story. Sling the wife a big oily sausage when her husband’s away, see how her allegiance shifts.
What could he do? Where could he sleep? He went to his bedroom and stood over the nebulous shape of his wife, half-covered in sheet. There was barely any room for him anyway, the way she was sprawled. He bent down to smell her. Yes, it was stronger here. The smell of sloth, betrayal and corruption. “Why have I been so loyal to you?” he whispered. He extracted his pillow from under Daisy’s arm and set himself up on the window seat in the living room, where he could almost stretch out. He could hear the ocean, tamed by the coral reef and so quiet at this time of night. He thought about how long his marriage might have lasted in England, where Daisy had the comforts of home and there was enough noise to prevent anyone from thinking. Before he dozed off, he thanked Africa, where nothing could stay hidden for long.
CHAPTER
10
Templeton’s Room
The next morning Ali interrupted Ingrid as she was slogging through Templeton’s book on Swahili culture. She put up her hand for him to let her finish a particularly succinct paragraph, and then read it again to commit it to memory. In the Swahili world, God was all-powerful. Under his compassionate eye, human beings were blown this way and that by forces both visible and invisible. God’s world (perhaps not as compassionate as God himself) was ordered by a strict system of rank and file. Those of high birth and pure lineage were better positioned for the afterlife, though all earthly souls were threatened daily by corruption and pollution and were continually faced with new opportunities to gain or lose power in the battle for purity. This power, while desirable, also brought one dangerously closer to God and the ultimate sin of seeing oneself as his equal.
Paradise, lost to the earthbound, was to be regained only in death, on the Day of Judgment. With effort, a modicum of happiness and peace was possible before that day, though the never-ending war against evil and defilement wore souls thin. Every member of every community had to be vigilant in the fight against them, purifying him- or herself with ritual prayer and ablution. Evil lurking in one soul was a threat to everyone who came in contact with that soul.
While Ingrid marked the page and closed the book, Ali spelled the title out backward. “You need a book?” he asked. “I will tell you everything you need to know.” He motioned to the sparkling water. “Come, Miss Ingrid, see the island from the water. Before it gets hot. The tide is high and the wind is blowing. It is perfect.”
Ingrid could not see why she should put up a resistance to Ali. She had made her status clear on money and if he understood that she was going to give him nothing in exchange for his attentions, the rest was his choice. It was possible he had nothing better to do. It was equally possible that he genuinely wanted to share the island with her, a sort of self-appointed ambassador. Whatever the motive, she was comfortable enough with him, and a sail around the island would help her get her bearings.
“Is a skirt okay?”
“A skirt is best. Don’t bother with shoes.”
Like the other island dhows, Ali’s had a slightly tilted mast made from the trunk of a mangrove tree. He demonstrated how the yard could be slid up and down the mast to adjust the height and angle of the sail. The hull was deep and damp with seawater. Ingrid sat on the salty planks while Ali unfurled the sail and swam the boat away from the shore. When the sail luffed with the beginnings of a breeze, he heaved himself back into the dhow and smiled. “You are enjoying yourself?”
“Very much,” Ingrid said, leaning her head back to see the sky. “I grew up sailing little boats.”
Ali clenched a sheet between his teeth as the sail filled with wind. He steered with his foot. “Come back here and steer the boat,” he said after a lull. “I think you like steering, no?”
Ingrid held the thick wooden rudder in her hand and experimented with the boat’s responsiveness, gauging whether it liked to point into the wind or fall off.
“Few things are as nice as sailing,” Ali said. “Using what God gives you in nature; the wind and the water. And with the wood that God provides, we build the boat. We build it so it will go where you tell it to go. How many things go where you tell them to go? Not even I can tell myself to go somewhere I want myself to go. At the hotel bar after a few beers I tell myself to go home to bed and then I don’t. I have another beer and I see a pretty girl and I am out all night.”
“Doing what?”
“Don’t worry, Miss Ingrid, I am a good boy. I tell you these things because you understand, coming from the West.”
“Understand what, Ali?”
“Understand a split in the self.”
An Obvious Enchantment Page 10
