Love Me or Leave Me

by Gwynne Forster

  “This is wonderful,” Drake said when she told him after dinner that evening as they walked out on the hotel’s balcony in the evening breeze that cooled the parched city. “Tomorrow and the next day, my brothers and I will be with the minister of the interior. Telford’s willing to film for you, but…”

  She looked around, saw no onlookers and kissed his cheek. “I’ll use the local cameraman for sites around here, but when we go to the slave castles and other historic places, I want Telford to use my station’s camera, because it will probably take much better pictures.”

  “Okay. I think Velma wants to shop for fabrics. Russ said she was trying to get Alexis to join her. Let those two artists shop for whatever, and the rest of us will take care of business. If the TV station gives you a car and a driver, we needn’t worry about your safety.” When she sent him a sly wink, suggestive of the wickedness that he loved in her, he said, “You know when to tease, don’t you? Ladd told me that any demonstration of affection between a man and a woman is taboo with these people, so I can’t even pinch your nose.”

  She smiled, and he stepped a bit closer to her. “Woman, your smile gives me a glow that begins with my toes and shoots up to my scalp.”

  “Sorry,” she said, beaming at him. “You’ll have to behave, and I fear for you.”

  “Don’t be clever, sweetheart. If I knock on your door tonight, I don’t doubt that you’ll open it, because you wouldn’t want me to wake up the entire floor.”

  Her shrug was slow and lazy. “Can I help it if these people are light sleepers?”

  He shook his head as a feeling of joy pervaded him. Oh, how he loved that woman. “You’re hopeless. Let’s find the others and have a drink with them. Being here with you like this calls for more than we’re allowed right now.”

  They found the Harringtons in one of the tearooms off the lobby. “What time tomorrow do we see the minister of the interior?” Telford asked Drake. “I want to get the business over as quickly as possible. From what I’ve been reading, there’s a lot to see, and we’ll only be here a week.”

  “He’s sending a car for us tomorrow morning at nine,” Drake told Telford, “and I asked him to invite a Ghanaian architect and engineer to join us. I figure we can learn something from them.”

  “Good. It’s been a long day, and I don’t want to tire Alexis out.”

  “Thanks, honey,” Alexis said, “but I’m as fit as I ever was. If you’d like to turn it, though, I’m certainly willing.”

  Telford stood, walked over to his wife and assisted her. Drake figured that when Alexis became heavy in the late months of her pregnancy, Telford would probably refuse to leave her side. He glanced first at Russ, then at Velma, saw that they, too, were lost in each other, and the feeling that he was missing something vital stole over him. In spite of his efforts, he couldn’t shake it. The two couples left him alone with Pamela and went to their beds to share themselves, to revel in their love for each other. He focused his gaze on Pamela, who avoided looking at him, and he knew why. He also knew that her thoughts dwelled on her status as a single woman traveling with her lover and not her husband. No one had to tell him that she wouldn’t welcome him to her bed that night.

  “What time is the car coming for you tomorrow?” he asked her, not only because the silence had become embarrassing, but because he wanted to see the two men who would accompany her.

  “They’ll be here at nine-thirty, and I’m supposed to be back here at the hotel at one. If I don’t get all the information I need, they’ll take me around again the next morning.”

  “I’ll have our driver wait till your crew gets here. All right?”

  A smile lit her face. “Thanks. At least they’ll know I’m not here in Ghana by myself. I…uh…I think I’ll turn in now.”

  She looked at him with eyes that seemed to plead with him, but he couldn’t figure out what she wanted, so he asked her, “What is it? Is there something you want to say to me?”

  She focused her gaze on her feet or the floor, he wasn’t sure which. What a mess. He couldn’t even hold her hand to reassure her and put her at ease, so he did the best that he could under the circumstances. “I love you, Pamela. Please don’t be embarrassed to tell me whatever concerns you. If I can fix it, no matter what it is, I will.”

  She looked at him then. Steadily. Eye to eye. “I know you want us to be together tonight. I want it, too, but I don’t like the implications, and I…I feel awkward.”

  “I realize that, and I understand why you feel that way. Come on, let’s go up. Since I can’t even hold your hand in public, will you at least step into my room long enough to kiss me good-night? I won’t ask if I can go to your room.” Suddenly she laughed. “Please tell me what’s amusing you,” he said.

  Her laughter held a tinkle, like an Asian temple bell. “I had a picture of myself devouring you the minute we stepped off the plane in Baltimore.”

  “I envisioned something similar, but the thought of waiting another six days for it doesn’t amuse me.”

  In the elevator, he held her hand, because no one could see them, and when they reached his room, he unlocked the door and looked down at her, his face a question mark. She stepped into his room, and he closed the door, but didn’t lock it. He’d probably be turned on all night, but he needed her warmth and loving.

  When she raised her arms to his shoulders, smiled and parted her lips, he had to fight the desire that welled up in him. “Don’t pour it on too thick, sweetheart,” he said, but her fingers stroked his nape, and he plunged his tongue into her. What was it about this woman? Shudders wracked him as she sucked his tongue deep into her mouth and gripped him to her body. Feeling himself near full arousal, he broke the kiss and moved away from her.

  “Another two minutes of that,” he said in a guttural voice he hardly recognized, “and I wouldn’t let you out of this room. I’m starved for you.” He kissed her quickly on her mouth and opened the door. “At least I’m not the only one knocked out,” he said when he noticed that she seemed in a stupor. “Honey, you have to learn how to kiss a little bit.”

  “What good will that do me,” she replied, “if you don’t learn to do the same? I kiss according to the way I’m being kissed.”

  “I’m not going to touch that one. I’ll stand here till you’re inside your room.” He couldn’t resist a pat on her luscious hips. “Dream about me.”

  “Good night, love.” After the lock turned on her door, he threw off his clothes and headed for a cold shower.

  His room was attractive and pleasant, the mattress precisely to his taste, and the air-conditioning unit was quiet and effective. Nonetheless, at daybreak, he hadn’t slept one wink. Throughout the night, as he thrashed in bed, he struggled with the knowledge that only a wall separated them, that he could almost feel her breathe, but she might as well have been in Baltimore. And for the first time in his life, he envied his brothers.

  He dragged himself out of bed, showered, dressed and went down to the breakfast room, praying that the coffee would taste like coffee and that it would be strong. He drank two cups of it and, from the window beside his table, saw the swimming pool—empty and welcoming. He went back to his room, put on his swimming trunks and the terry-cloth robe he found in the closet, and headed for the pool. After swimming three laps, he felt as if he could sleep for a week. He dressed and ate breakfast alone, all the while thinking that his brothers had probably slept peacefully in the arms of their wives.

  “Hell, I’m not going to let it get to me. At least she’s here, and she cared enough to make this trip with me,” he said aloud as he paced from one side of his room to the other and back.

  “I ate a couple of hours ago,” he told Russ when asked why he hadn’t joined them for breakfast. “Try the pool. The water’s great. If you didn’t bring any decent swim trunks, you can borrow mine. That cup you wear would scandalize even the men in this place.”

  His attempt at jocularity was wasted on Russ, for his brother eyed him
with concern. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  “Here’s the car,” Telford said as if he didn’t believe it. “Right on time.”

  “Can we wait a few minutes until the TV station’s driver comes for Pamela?” Drake asked them.

  “Sure,” they said in unison.

  As if by magic at the mention of her name, she walked through the door, a vision in a short-sleeved yellow-linen pantsuit. He went to meet her in order to speak with her out of earshot of his brothers.

  “I hope you slept comfortably,” he said, gazing into the face he adored.

  Her quick shrug and the words “Not really” did not surprise him.

  A car arrived bearing the TV station’s logo and, damning local convention, he grasped her hand, walked with her to the big black Mercedes and opened the door for her, not waiting for the driver to do it.

  “Consider yourself thoroughly kissed,” he whispered.

  “Consider it returned in full measure,” she replied. And when she didn’t smile, he knew that her night had been like his—a battle between a tortured mind and the body’s needs.

  “Tonight will be different from last night,” he added, without having intended to say it, surprising himself.

  “Lord, I pray. I hope your day is successful. See you this afternoon.”

  He didn’t know what she meant, but he had wanted her to be aware that he’d seduce her if he had to. He laughed at himself. Seducing Pamela was a snap if she was willing, but if she wasn’t, he could forget it.

  Inviting their Ghanaian counterparts to their meeting with the interior minister proved highly fruitful, for as they examined the proposed site, the two men had the answers to most of their questions. It remained, however, to determine conditions beneath the soil. The local men thought they would find clay, but Drake suspected that the water level would constitute a problem.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll get a drill and test it,” the minister said.

  When they returned to the hotel shortly after twelve, the sun had already begun to burn Drake’s skin, and he remembered the adage coined by some colonial people under British rule: “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.”

  “I’m going to the pool,” Russ said, to no one’s surprise.

  “Me, too,” Telford replied, “as soon as I write a note to Alexis, that is, if she’s not back yet.”

  “I hope she isn’t out in this heat,” Drake said. He wanted a swim, too, but he wanted to enjoy it with Pamela, so he waited in the lobby until she arrived.

  “How’d it go?” he asked her.

  “Wonderful. I got a lot of good footage, and to be sure I get it right, I taped the cameraman’s descriptions and explanations, although my viewers will hear my voice, not his. It’s brutal out there. How about a swim?”

  “I was waiting for you with that in mind. Meet you at the pool in fifteen minutes.”

  At the pool, he pulled back his goggles and watched as she threw off her robe and revealed a perfect, voluptuous body. “Let your mouths water, fellows, but keep your hands off,” he said to no one in particular as he watched the men ogle her. He jumped up, walked over to her and took her arm in what he recognized as a show of possessiveness.

  “You are one tantalizing woman.”

  Her face bloomed into a smile. “There’re no flies on you, buddy, but you could have found something less revealing. If I keep thinking about you in that…that thing, I may drown.”

  “You think this is revealing? You ought to see what Russ swims in. There’s more to it than these swim trunks, in case you’re interested,” he said, smothering a grin. “All you have to do is say the word.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  They swam together, frolicking, racing and synchronizing their strokes. After half an hour, he urged her to the side of the pool. “I’m hungry. What about you?”

  Her wink heated his blood. “Keep it up,” he told her, “and you may expect company tonight no matter who I have to wake up.”

  “Yeah?” was all she said, and he intended to take that to mean okay.

  After lunch, he told her that he needed a siesta. “I didn’t sleep a minute last night. See you at about six.”

  On Wednesday morning, their business completed and Alexis and Velma having completed their shopping—each in possession of several bolts of fabric and varying lengths of kente cloth—the six of them got into Sackefyio’s stretch Mercedes and set out for Tema, a town in Greater Accra and its port on the Gulf of Guinea.

  At the Tema port, as they watched from shore, Pamela’s gaze found a young couple—obviously Americans—who stood on the deck of a small sightseeing boat holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, oblivious to local conventions. Their fellow passengers disembarked, but the couple remained in what appeared to be silent communion. When the man put both arms around the woman, Pamela couldn’t bear to see more, for she could almost feel the mutual love reverberating from them. She turned to move away, and encountered Drake’s hard frame. As if of their own volition, his arms enveloped her.

  “There’ll be a time for us,” he whispered, and as she let herself revel in his embrace—though for only a second—she vowed not to let him out of her life, that he would be hers and hers alone. She wasn’t going to allow him to teach her to love him and then leave her.

  She moved out of his embrace to find Telford, Russ and their wives staring at them. For as long as she lived, she would remember that spot at Tema’s port as the place where she swore that Drake Harrington would be her husband.

  Their drive along the coast took them past eleven of Ghana’s infamous slave castles, but their primary mission was to see Elmina Castle at Fort St. Jorge.

  “What’s so special about this one?” Velma asked their guide.

  In a voice that suggested she should know, he said, “It’s the first slave castle built in the Gold Coast—which is now Ghana—the largest and the most notorious.”

  “Who built it?” Telford wanted to know.

  “The Portuguese built it in 1482 as a trading post for gold, cocoa, ivory, sugar, pepper and human flesh, and it remained in Portuguese hands until the Dutch ran them out in 1657.

  “They shoved men, women and babies in that dungeon under there,” the guide told them when they reached Elmina, “and with no air and little food, they died by the thousands before any were ever put on those boats. I can get a guide to take you through there, if you want to go. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  Pamela stared up at the enormous white building with its windows and arches and marveled that, with all that space, the human beings that the Europeans caught and shackled were herded like cattle into a dirt-floored, windowless dungeon.

  She pulled on Drake’s hand. “When I see things like this, I have to try hard not to hate.”

  “I don’t try,” she heard Velma say.

  “I’m going in there,” Russ said. “If my ancestors came from here, I want to know what they experienced, and I’d like to see how this place was constructed.”

  “I knew he’d go,” Drake said. “Russ has the ability to see social conditions—hurtful ones—with the eyes and mind of a scientist. That’s why he’s so good at what he does.”

  They moved on to Sekondi Castle, built by the Dutch in 1670 and currently serving as a lighthouse. But Pamela’s thoughts remained with the enormous Elmina that sat on a tiny peninsula jutting out into the blue waters of the Gulf of Guinea. The sight of that dungeon, the hole through which the captors pushed their captives into slavery, would remain with her forever. From that moment, she was ready to go home.

  “But you didn’t go inside,” Russ argued when she said how she felt.

  “I saw enough from outside, and my imagination supplied the rest.”

  “It’s well you didn’t go inside,” Russ told her. “I imagine I’ll have nightmares tonight and for some nights to come.”

  “Stay with me tonight,” Drake said to Pamela after dinner. “Will you?”

  He thought s
he was about to say no, and a spasm of pain shot through his gut. But she looked at him steadily and answered, “I think it’s better if you stay with me.”

  His heart began to thud with the rhythm of the hooves of galloping horses. He told himself to slow down. “Whatever you prefer works for me.”

  Inside his room, he removed his linen jacket and brushed his teeth, put his door card into his trouser pocket, waited a few minutes and then telephoned Pamela. “May I come over now?”

  “Yes, but don’t knock. The door will be open.”

  He could hardly wait to get to her. Everything in him, his body, his mind and his spirit, cried out to her. His need had never been so great, not for her or for any woman. He didn’t have to have anyone—man, woman or child—to legitimate him; he was a man, and he knew it. But at that moment, he needed her with him to realize his humanity, to brush away the ugliness of slavery and the negligent massacre of innocent men, women and children whose only sin had been the color of their skin. Most of all, he needed confirmation of her love for him.

  He leaned against the wall just inside his room and willed himself to think only of her. After a minute, he locked his door, went next door and opened hers. What he saw was a beautiful woman in a long white sheath standing in a shaft of moonlight that pierced the darkness from the window beyond.

  He gasped. “You take my breath away.”

  “Let’s sit down over here,” she said, motioning to the short sofa near the window.

  He wanted to kiss her, to take her right then and sink into her body, but rushing a woman had never been his style. When he would have rested her head against his shoulder, she patted her lap.