“Didn’t you want me to leave everyone speechless?” she says.
Outside the conference room, Kurt is waiting for her, straight and motionless like some totem pole indifferent to the elements. Zoe walks to him and touches his arm.
“You’re here.”
“How could I ever let you face alone these man-eating specimens of our species?” he says in his usual wry tone.
Will it always be like this, she wonders, as a wave of gratitude lifts her towards the safety buoy of his half-smile. Will he always be able to decode her moods — or needs — as if he had created them, jotting them down with his sharp-tipped pencil?
“Can you leave now or do you need to mend the mess you’ve left behind?” he asks, adjusting his gold-rimmed eyeglasses as he glances at Kuyper.
“I’m free, now.”
“Then let’s go. There’s a place I’d like you to see.”
33
A BALCONY OVER THE WORLD
IT’S LATE IN the afternoon and the sunset light has begun to pour in, softening the view, providing a respite from the harshness of the world. They walk through a maze of narrow alleys as the muezzin’s call to prayer spreads over the old town. Sitting on cement benches, men with searching eyes are playing one more game of bao, gossiping, chewing qat, lolling in the dying light. Swarms of children dart barefoot in and out of dusty courtyards. Dust is everywhere, but how different this island’s dust seems to the one that sat silently over the Kalahari. Here, it swirls in joyous spiralling patterns amidst raucous manifestations of life. It infiltrates under brass-studded mahogany doors and behind thick coral stone walls. It enters all those places where people reunite to celebrate births and marriages, form alliances, break vows, stir up jealousies, debate ideas, generate new meanings. Here, dust witnesses the complex flow of human interactions.
Kurt walks briskly, touching Zoe’s elbow lightly or putting a hand on the small of her back to guide her when they have to turn or take a new direction. He seems eager to reach their destination.
“Here we are,” he finally says as he stops in front of a whitewashed square tower. Its façade is studded with intricately carved rosewood balconies, like henna decorations on a pale face. With his extended arm, he pushes the front door open and lets her in. They go up several flights of stairs until they reach the roof terrace, which accommodates an Ottoman-style coffee house.
Zoe suddenly finds herself in the midst of an Arabian night. Patrons are already lying on Persian carpets, resting their elbows on embroidered pillows. Rose-scented smoke rises from incense sticks while wrought-iron lanterns project glowing arabesques on gauze curtains separating a series of alcoves — islands of intimacy under the open sky.
“Zoe, meet my friend Yusuf, the owner of this place, a refined poet and wonderful storyteller,” Kurt says after having hugged a stout man in his fifties with a thick black moustache. “We’ve spent many a night on this terrace celebrating the healing power of words.”
“Salaam aleikum.” Yusuf greets her with a half bow, which reveals the delicate embroidery of his kafia. “Words are useless without a shared meal and the right audience,” he says as he leads them into a corner booth. “It’s always an honour to have Kurt and his friends at my table. Be my guest.”
“Leave it to me,” Kurt whispers. Zoe nods, grateful for this gesture of soft male authority, as the host leaves discreetly after taking their order. Once again, Kurt has sensed her mood. Right now, she wishes nothing more than to be guided, to abdicate — for once — the precepts of her reasoning mind.
A waitress, wrapped in a colourful kanga cloth, brings their drinks to a low-lying rosewood table. Still standing, Kurt gestures Zoe to follow him. They lean against the stone balustrade and gaze at the sight below them. In the dimming light Zoe makes out the old town rooftops, the cast-iron columns of the House of Wonders, the palms quivering in the evening breeze, the dhows lulled to sleep in the harbour and, beyond it all, the ocean — opening around them like a dark embrace. Zan-zi-bar. Its name sounds like a lullaby, an evocation, an enchantment. Merely pronouncing it conjures up images of an island that, instead of being selfabsorbed, locked in anxious self-sufficiency, has worked as a crossing point — or a starting point towards somewhere else. For better or for worse, in pleasure or misery, Zanzibar’s paved streets have welcomed pilgrims and slave merchants, adventurers and thieves, dreamers and fugitives. Built to be outward-looking, the windows of its most sumptuous residences have been kept open towards the sea, like curious eyes waiting for what winds and fate might bring in.
Kurt slowly passes his fingers over the rough-edged beads of her wrist bracelet and Zoe emerges from her fleeting musings.
“Ostrich egg-shells. Such a rudimental material for such a fine and well-crafted object.”
“The bushwomen living near the camp gave it to me, together with a similar necklace. They said it would help me to walk ‘with the wind’.”
Kurt continues to examine the bracelet, as if searching for signs of her life among the San.
“One day you’ll take me up there,” he says.
His thumb traces her lower lip, as it did that night outside his house. This time, she lets his hand continue its course along her neck and down to her breast. They kiss, picking up the ocean’s breathing. Then Kurt gently pulls away from her and speaks, revealing a new tenderness in his voice.
“I wrote like a madman, for three months, day and night, revisiting what I’d been working on for the past two years and mixing it with what I found in your aunts’ diaries. I wrote your story. My story. Our story.” He pauses, trying to read the expression on her face.
She keeps quiet. Inside, she feels like deep water in a still lake. Dario’s tanned face flashes for a second on its surface smiling sweetly and sadly at her, as if in a last adieu.
“For fifteen years I tried to die slowly, one day at a time,” he says, his eyes now scouring the night. “But I didn’t die. I’m not dead yet.”
“Then, let the living take care of the living,” she barely manages to say.
The waitress has left on the table crispy samosas, pilaf rice and crab meat in a curry sauce before drawing the gauze curtain behind her. The food looks inviting and Zoe suddenly feels hungry. Sitting on the carpet by her side, Kurt reaches for one of the plates and offers her a well-chosen bite. She marvels at the casual intimacy of this little gesture. There is a whole atlas of emotions yet to be discovered between them.
They eat and talk into the night.
“Stay as long as you want,” Yusuf tells Kurt after the last customers have left. “My attendant lives in the premises. He will let you out.”
Before turning in for the night, he brings to their table a pot of boiling water for their teas.
“You never believed in the curse, did you?” Zoe asks Kurt, hugging herself, arms crossed over her chest.
“I never did,” he replies a bit too dryly. “As Conrad said, this world holds enough mystery and terror and wonder in itself. The rest is mere superstition.”
For the first time, she detects a weary note in his voice. How funny, she thinks, half-smiling, we’ve just become lovers and I’ve already found a way to annoy him.
“Are you cold?” Kurt asks a moment later, noticing her sudden shiver. He grabs his linen jacket lying on the pillows and puts it on her shoulders, as if with this gesture he wanted to apologize for his rather brusque reply, and at the same time brush away their past, everything that doesn’t include them being together.
With the night breeze, the gauze curtains sail lightly around them, ready to take flight towards new lands.
“How does it end, Kurt?” she finally asks.
He looks at her, his mouth set in a slightly amused smile.
“I have no way of knowing. I guess we should give it a try.”
She withdraws her hand, suddenly puzzled, almost lost.
“I don’t mean this,” she says, sweeping her arms out in a gesture that includes all that’s there: the old
town, the terrace, their alcove and their faces, barely illuminated by the only lantern still burning. “I mean the story in your book.”
“Is there any difference?”
Zoe sinks her eyes into his and when she resurfaces her face shows a new glow.
“I don’t know. But it no longer matters, right?”
34
ON THE PIER
IT’S NEARLY DAWN when their footsteps faintly echo through the winding streets, with the old city still fast asleep. They go past Zoe’s inn and, as if by tacit agreement, reach the beach where a pier, its old timber boards bleached grey by sun and salt, juts out into the sea.
The first shafts of sunlight rise from the flat, dark land mass behind them and burst over the tall palm trees of the Shangani Gardens. At sea, the dhows loom white in the distance like big weary seagulls.
“It’s already daybreak,” he says.
“You’re a writer, you can control time at your leisure, shrink it to a moment or extend it to eternity.”
“Only when I write.”
“Then you should never stop writing.”
“That’s it,” he whispers as he kisses her holding her supple body.
She pulls slowly away from him and begins to undress.
Kurt watches in silence this red-haired Nereid stripping before him and in his gaze — or is it her imagination? — she catches a sudden rush of uncertainty, perhaps even apprehension.
She dives in and then turns to smile at him, her hair dripping. Catching the early sun, her eyes flicker with green sparks, as if they no longer belonged to her but to the sea.
He quickly undresses and joins her in the water. They kiss again. Then she starts swimming. He lingers behind, watching the steady pace of her freestyle, thinking back to the times in his cell when he imagined himself gliding afar in a boundless sea.
Yes, he could freeze this moment and make it last forever. Instead, he follows her, paddling at a faster pace until he catches up with her. Then they carry on swimming side by side, looking at each other through the glistening water, losing track of each other in their thoughts, finding each other again.
Zoe spots her own shadow on the sandy bottom. It’s no longer a solitary silhouette: Another one is now moving in sync with hers. Despite her growing fatigue, she feels strong, endowed with almost inexhaustible energy, as if life poured into her with every stroke. Looking back at what happened, she can now see everything crystal-clear, rushing through her mind like well-conceived sequences in a fast-forwarded movie, or in an elongated déjà-vu. She won’t censor it, nor edit it. She will keep everything: the roughness, the awkwardness, the multiple shortcomings. Because this is her story. She feels water envelop her in a shiny, limitless cocoon. And, for the first time, she feels proud, worthy enough for this world.
Below Kurt, against the immense ocean floor, scenes from his life scroll by: the ball games on the lawn with his mother, the beatings from his father, the poetry by candlelight, the students killed in Soweto, Jasmine’s lips, the pools of blood in the prison corridors, his unborn child, the smoky bistros in Paris. He sees himself open his black leather notebook and, in the blink of an eye, enter the sacred writing space, his pencil moving forward steady and resolute like his lover’s crawl. Yes, Zoe, we shall swim like this forever, since this is how we shall live: dissolving ourselves with each stroke, and then reinventing ourselves on each yet unwritten page.
From the shore, a fisherman has been tracking the two of them, two small dots suspended between the cobalt blue of the sky and the silvery slab of the sea.
On the jetty, there lies a floral print shirt held down by a black leather notebook. A light breeze blows the cover open. With invisible fingers it nervously leafs through the pages, as if looking for a specific passage, a memorable sentence. It only finds a flutter of blank paper.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOVELS ARE RARELY written in isolation. As a writer, I feel privileged to have been able to tap into a seemingly inexhaustible supply of encouragement, linguistic proficiency and intellectual curiosity. I have to thank all the dear friends, colleagues and newly-found acquaintances who contributed to enrich and polish my writing. Among them: Jane Ball (for her editing), Archie Crail (for his writer’s eye), Sébastien Doubinski (for his timely suggestions), Kathryn Pentecost (the woman in arts Down Under) and — of course — the ladies of the YVR Bookworms Club. In particular, I would like to thank Sabina Nawaz, who made me reflect about the difference between intellectual modesty and humility, and Kelleen Wiseman for her stream of consciousness.
Deserving a special mention are:
— Inez Baranay, always there when I needed a writer and mentor’s shoulder.
— J.M. Coetzee, who kindly checked the expressions in Afrikaans.
— Michael Hattaway, who took the time to read the final version of the manuscript, providing most helpful comments and suggestions.
— Cecil Hershler, whose storyteller’s sensibility and South African-accented voice added an extra layer of reflection and understanding.
— Saskia Waters, who read and further edited an early version of the manuscript with the eyes and heart of a Dutch-born, South African-raised palaeontologist. Like the protagonist of this book, Dr. Waters did field work during South Africa’s apartheid regime; more precisely, she spent ten years at the University of Witwatersrand, of which about six were at the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research.
I warmly thank Sneja Gunew and Joseph Pivato for having introduced me to my publishers at Guernica, Michael Mirolla and Connie McParland, without whom this book would not be now in your hands.
Most of all, though, I thank my husband and life-long companion, Stefano Gulmanelli, who has shared in this book from start to finish. He read my work, discussed ideas, suggested changes, challenged me when needed. No writer should be left without this kind of unwavering and invaluable support.
A final thought and thank you goes to my parents, my sister (with her endearing family) and my aunt, for just being who they are.
Having said that, I take full responsibility for any inaccuracies, mistakes, omissions or controversial views/statements contained in the text.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IN THE LAST thirty years Arianna Dagnino has built a diversified cultural and professional experience across many borders and four continents. She was born in Genoa, Italy, and studied in London, Moscow and Boston before starting her career in journalism and international reporting, which led her to spend several years in Southern Africa and Australia. In 2010 she re-entered the academy to undertake a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Sociology at the University of South Australia before moving to Vancouver as a permanent resident of Canada. She is currently teaching at the University of British Columbia and, concurrently, carrying out postdoctoral research at the University of Ottawa thanks to a SSHRC fellowship. She has published books both in Italian and English on digital technologies, global mobility and transcultural flows. Among them, Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Mobility (Purdue UP, 2015), Jesus Christ Cyberstar (Ipoc, 2009), Uoma (Mursia, 2000), and I nuovi nomadi (Castelvecchi, 1996). Dagnino is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and the Society of Translators and Interpreters of British Columbia.
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