Desertion

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  Her grandmother Rehana had been married to an Indian merchant who went away and never came back. She had several proposals after that (kaposwa na watu wengi) but she refused every one of them. She was difficult. By the time the Englishman came she was no longer young, and there were scandals about her already. No one could say anything to her. When the Englishman came and loved her, she went to him. She did not say anything, but every afternoon she put on her buibui and went off on her own, and no one could say anything to her. If you said anything to her, it would be to accuse her of zinah. Nobody dared to do that. It was a terrible crime with unspeakable punishment. Stoning. The only person who could say anything to her was her brother, Hassanali. He was, in addition, Rehana’s guardian in the long absence of her husband, even though the brother was younger than the sister. A woman always had to have a guardian: her father, her husband, and in the absence of both, the eldest of her brothers. In the absence of all of these, the nearest male relative will do. I didn’t know that. When she told me that, I couldn’t believe it at first, that any male relative could turn himself into a guardian and command a woman. Hassanali refused to say anything about the afternoon absences. What was he to do if she confessed to zinah? Have her stoned to death?

  Until in the end someone shouted something from the darkness of a lane as she walked past one evening. In her rage she blurted out something to Malika when she got home, but she could not repeat the word that had been shouted at her. I won’t soil my mind with their filth, she said. Someone complained to the DO about Pearce. It probably came from the noble Omanis (watukufu wamanga), who like to display their holy, small-minded scruples. They would not have complained directly. That was below their nobility. A word in the wakil’s ear perhaps, to be whispered to the DO later. The Omanis had strong views on scruples and propriety. Even the sight of a naked navel was offensive to them (makruh), and a fart released in their vicinity could lead to injury. Imagine what torture the rumours of Rehana and Pearce must have been to them.

  So the lovers moved to Mombasa, first Pearce and then Rehana after him. They lived in an apartment for some weeks or some months. It was the same apartment that Rehana lived in all her life, and the one in which she died. That was where her mother Asmah was born. The one without sin: that was how Rehana named her. In hope. By then Pearce was gone. He left once and then returned, but left again.

  It’s something that he returned, that he was torn about leaving her, she said. It makes you think he must have loved her, even though he still left. At some point, he must have come to his senses and made his way home. There would have been any number of reasons why he would have left her. It must have been impossible for both of them. She was a brave, battling person to go as far as she did. That’s what I think now as I try to picture her. Someone who can sit still and return a stare. A woman who can sit still and return a stare.

  What did Pearce look like? I asked her.

  She smiled and said that she liked that I used that name. He was her grandfather, and sometimes she secretly used that name to call herself. She said that her grandmother Malika told her that he was thin and tall, and that his eyes glittered. She didn’t think grandmother Malika liked the way he looked, or even liked him. Her mother Asmah told her that Rehana used to say that he was always gay.

  She told me these things as we lay on the bed under the night-light. Sometimes I could not see her face because I lay in her arms while her voice brushed my temples. Or she leaned against the wall while I lay in her lap, the tangle of her hair brushing my cheek, looking up at her as she spoke, and stroked her thighs and her breasts. Or sometimes we lay beside each other as we spoke, touching, always touching. When she was feeling strong and happy, she liked to plan. How long would we have to wait before I completed my training? Once I had a job, I could tell my parents and then I could move into the flat with her. She filled my life with happiness, always gay. When I was away from her I could not always withstand anxieties and terror. One night we lay sweating after love and heard someone walking on the road, sandals slapping as he strode by, whistling. She lay tight against me, silently holding on and shuddering. What is it? What is it? I asked her. I’m afraid, she said. I tried to make a joke. Of the whistling? I asked. The spirits who roamed the world after dark used it as a signal to summon each other. Of them. Of that man and his whistling. Can you not hear how sure he is? I’m afraid of you leaving me. I’ll never leave you, I said.

  She did not tell me about the other man for a while. I think she did not want me to rush to judgement of her grandmother. She wanted me to like her first. Pearce had made some arrangement with money, but Rehana knew it was not going to be enough for long. He had arranged to pay the rent on the apartment for six months, so she could have the baby in a decent place. He also deposited a small amount of money in a bank account in her name. Perhaps he thought that after the money was finished she would return to live with her brother behind the shop. He left her an address in England in case of an emergency. Pearce did not explain how she could get the money out. When Rehana went to withdraw some money from the account after Pearce’s departure, the bank refused to allow it. She did not understand why. She had never been to a bank before and she did not even know for sure that they had refused. In her confusion and shame she thought it was because they disapproved of what she had done. She did not write to Pearce. She asked her brother Hassanali and his wife Malika to take Asmah for a while, until she had organised her life better. It was only to be for a short while, but Asmah stayed with them all her young life. She was the only child they had.

  While he lived in Mombasa, Pearce made friends with a Scottish man called Andrew Mills. He was a water engineer who had a room at the Mombasa Club (Members Only), which really meant Europeans Only. European visitors stayed there when they travelled or went to meet friends. Andrew Mills stayed there all the time. He liked to drink. He visited them in the apartment while Pearce was there, and he went on visiting after he left. After a while he moved in and took over the rent.

  What is a water engineer? I asked her.

  She shrugged, and then ran her wet finger over my lips. So discreet, she said. You ask what is a water engineer when you could have asked what kind of friend he was, moving in like that. Or what kind of woman Rehana had become.

  A courtesan, I said, practising the English word. It’s not a word you often get the chance to use.

  That is what everyone thought, she said.

  What else could they think? I asked.

  She shrugged again, meaning she did not care what they thought. He was an elderly man, she said. He moved into the apartment and helped her set up a small cloth business. She opened a shop and employed a tailor, making and selling curtains and bed-covers and other such items.

  How did she think of such a scheme? Would you have thought of something like that?

  It must have been the old shopkeeper blood in her, she said. This was her dream, this was how she thought she could look after herself. When the business was flourishing, she would collect Asmah from her brother and look after her herself. I think this was when she started to drink.

  I knew then that this was going to be a tragic story. How could a woman who was abandoned by her husband, who had a child in sin with a European man who also abandoned her, who lived with another elderly European man and who drank herself, find her way back to content? She watched my silence with a sad smile and I felt my eyes watering with love for her. I didn’t know what the sadness meant at the time but it made my heart fill with sorrow.

  Nobody knows the life they lived together, she said. She still visited relatives, but she never talked about her life with the water engineer. I don’t know what relatives she visited. There are always relatives. The servant was never a native of Mombasa and so could not be pumped for information. But there were empty bottles to dispose of. The man who collected the refuse every day sold the empties to shopkeepers. He explained where the bottles came from and how many he could bring in a week from all
his various calls. No one visited their house, and Rehana rarely went out in the evening. All those things made everyone understand now that Rehana too was a drinker, but no one knew what else went on in the house, whether she was really a courtesan. When Malika and Hassanali and Asmah visited Mombasa, they stayed with rel ives and called to greet Rehana during daytime. The water engineer did not come home until after they left, so they never met him once.

  They lived like this for many years, fourteen years, until the beginning of the war in 1914. He was angry about the war, the water engineer. Then one evening, while Rehana was stitching the hem of a skirt or something ordinary like that, Andrew Mills collapsed in a drunken daze in his own room. She heard him fall, and when she reached his room she found him dead. Wait, wait. He left her money in his will, so she could live in their apartment and carry on her business.

  The little Italian left today. He looked dazed, a bit tearful in the end. That started Ma and Farida crying, and Ba’s face went into a tortured pucker as he tried not to snivel. I had to stop myself smiling. It was as if he was going away for ever. It’s what he wants to do, I want to tell them. He’s been dreaming about it for years. Sometimes he wakes up out of a deep sleep and starts to talk in English. What does that mean? He dreams in English. He’ll go there and he’ll do well. I’m sure he will. He’s ready for it. He’ll keep going on over-confidence and frenzy, and when the time comes to be tested he’ll succeed without difficulty.

  It’s a relief to see him go. Life will be less exhausting without him, and there’ll be more space in the room. I need more space. That sounds mean and I don’t intend it like that. I feel more need to be alone now. Life will be less for all of us, less for his absence, but he’ll be back soon enough. For the last week, he’s been saying goodbye to his friends, visiting them at home. One at a time, each one a drama. They’re as bad as each other, making promises to meet in Cairo or Budapest next summer. Then last night there was a long debate about whether he should wear his suit to travel or something more casual. Ba thought he should wear a clean shirt and trousers, preferably of a pale colour because pale colours always look elegant. What he didn’t say, and probably did not realise he was saying, was that was how he thought he looked best. Ma preferred the suit. He didn’t know who might be meeting him at the other end. Oh, it might be the Queen of England, Ba said, with uncharacteristic sarcasm, but Ma ignored him. Anyway, you don’t want people to think you don’t have a suit, she said. That is how English people dress there, even though they wear baggy shorts when they come here, and it is a nice suit. Farida nodded, I shrugged, leaving it to the aged ones to battle it out. He wore a suit.

  I would have been terrified. I think he was. Neither he nor I have ever travelled anywhere before. Do I feel envious of him? Yes, it would be a relief to get away from the things of everyday. Perhaps it’s because of her that I feel like this, although I don’t want to get away from her. I don’t think I feel a deep envy. Perhaps a stab of regret that I have not been invited to the picnic. I don’t expect life to deliver challenges and excitement, and I am not discontent. I would like to go fishing more often, and learn to handle an outrigger with more skill. I would like to know about plants and trees, their names and seasons, and what uses they are put to. It thrills me to hear the names of different woods, and to see people smell the wood to confirm their judgements. I would like to know what they’re smelling. I would like to teach in the country, to get to know that life more. I like to read slowly. I asked him to send me anything good that he reads. Perhaps he will, or if not he’ll bring some back with him.

  I fear the things he wants. You can’t just go there and see what there is to see and return. What you see makes you different. I fear that when he returns he will have the unassailable way of others who have been there. Someone will ask him a question, and he will listen with a tolerant smile. Then he will speak slowly, not wanting his listeners to miss a word he is saying. He will try to keep his answer uncomplicated, so as not to confuse his listeners with his sophistication, but he will expect to be heard with respect. He will think he has done something important.

  When the time came for him to go, he stumbled his way up the plane. We waved to him but he was too preoccupied to look back. He paused for a moment in the doorway and then plunged into the darkness. moment later he was back in the doorway, looking for us, wavi . Then as the plane took off, Ma really wept, saying that idiot will get lost somewhere. Ba said, you can’t get lost on a plane. He will, she said, or he’ll let someone steal his sterling money. She went on in that style, without tears by then, all the way back to town in the taxi. By the time we arrived home, she was silent and so was he. There were smiling lights in both their eyes, and I think they were proud of our little Italian, and probably already planning his homecoming.

  I thought of the water engineer when I saw her in the minister’s car. He is the politician about whom there were rumours before. He has children and a wife already, but he does not mind everyone knowing that he is courting. Will she become his courtesan? That is what everyone thinks. In three weeks we will be independent and the minister will then become powerful enough to take no notice of rumours. Perhaps powerful men need courtesans.

  I have seen her every day in all these months. I imagine myself with her every night. We talk softly in the half-dark as we used to, and then we make love. We discuss the precautions we have to take to avoid discovery. I have never gone back to the flat, and I have never tried to see her. She has not come to our house. Farida did all the talking for me. She sent word with Farida to ask if we could meet and talk about what had happened. I said I could not. I promised them that I would never see her again. I have been too ashamed to face her. I know how ashamed she will be of me, how she will think that I too think her dirty. She will be angry with me, who deserves worse.

  I caught glimpses of her twice, and both times something leaped in me but I looked away before I saw her properly. I see her every day. We meet secretly, late at night, behind closed doors. My name is Msiri Amin, the one who is trusted with a secret.

  Today I saw her in the minister’s car and I did not look away. I got off my bicycle and looked. He is not a full minister yet, so his car did not have a flag, but soon, in three weeks’ time, it will. I cycled to the sea at the back of the courthouse, and sat on the lawn for hours, thinking about things I already knew. There was no sign of the gardeners or the courthouse policemen. It was so calm and hushed that I became aware of my breathing. Even the sea slipped in softly. It made me think our rulers had already quietly slipped away and we were so used to obedience that we still went about our slavish duties unsupervised.

  Today I sat there for hours and knew again that I had made a horrible mistake. I had had no choice. I should have gone to see her, and lived the secret life I pretend to. The talk would have turned us into something furtive and ridiculous. Our lives would have become intolerable, but perhaps we need not have felt as filthy as the talk. I was stung by the sight of her in the minister’s car.

  When I came in, I saw Ma sitting by the window. She looks tragic sitting there but I cannot get her to move. She says she needs the light. She was reading one of the little Italian’s letters again. He keeps a steady supply, but there are three or four that she is fond of, and she keeps these in her sewing basket. It was evening, and the radio was playing a request programme. Farida was out or in her room. It was when she looked up as I entered that I thought how tragic she looked. She searched my face but I knew she could not see very well in that light. She was trying to tell from my face whether I had seen her. Even though it was now months since I had abandoned her, she still did that every time I came home. I composed myself and went to sit beside her on the sofa, so she could get a good look at me and feel reassured. She is slowly losing her sight, and the terror of it looms over her life. Sometimes I realise suddenly that she has been sitting nearby, weeping silently.

  I wrote to Rashid today. I wanted to write to him because tomorrow is a s
pecial day. It’s independence day. I felt I should write to him, I don’t know why. So I wrote to him seriously, like one grown-up person to another, which probably means I was solemn and sagacious. I wanted him not to miss the day, and to have a way of remembering it even though he is not here. That was when he wrote me that pompous missive full of solemn ponderings, to mock me probably. It would have been fun if he had been here, so I suppose I miss him sometimes although I am never going to tell him that. His friends are always asking after him. He must miss all that. They were always in a crowd.

  He would have written a poem about independence if he had been here. He would have organised a poetry competition to write the best poem on independence in a language of your choice. Then he would have whipped up a frenzy among friends and neighbours to get them to contribute one. He would have got himself all the gadgets of the moment, the mementoes of the celebrations: the badge with the new flag on it, a record of the new national anthem, the bunting to put above the doorway, and perhaps a large flag on a pole if Ba let him. The new flag does not look that different from the old, the same Busaid banner except for a clove cluster in a green circle in the middle. It could have been worse. It could have been a parrot on a twig or a barracuda over a background of blue with black ripples to represent the waves. They seem such fragile tokens of a state. The new national anthem was played on the radio this evening, to give us a taster so that we would not look at each other in confusion when the moment comes tomorrow. I could not catch hold of it. We will get used to it, as we will get used to the flag.

  Everything has changed at once. There was not enough time to get used to anything. We have to find a new way of speaking about how we live now. They don’t like to hear people say certain things, or sing certain songs. We must not mention the names of the sultan or the old government. It only lasted a month and then everything changed at once. The new flag no longer exists. It’s against the law to possess one, even out of curiosity. I’m already beginning to forget it. I can’t remember the colour of the clove cluster, if it was brown or golden. The national anthem is already forgotten. I don’t think anyone could hum a line of it. If they did, they would certainly get a beating or worse. People have been killed. I cannot write these things. They have frightened us too much, and it would be stupid to be found scribbling what we are required not to know about.