Forest Gate

by Peter Akinti

  I thought I was lost after an hour's drive when we took the first exit off at a lush, green roundabout and then all signs of the twenty-first century seemed to run out. Suddenly, I felt like I was driving behind the scenes of the set of an old Western: I saw lots of men in hammocks and I saw a sorry looking faro band playing in the shade. I tried to imagine the place we were going as we drove on along small dirt roads. We passed farmers, blacks and Indians mostly, planting by hand. By now I had a permanent sheet of sweat on my face and opened the window, almost suffocating at the rush of musky smelling dirt and sand from the disturbed roads as gusts of wind brushed up clouds of dust from passing cars. Now and then I thought I could see flashes of light reflecting over the dark slated roofs of the rows of small dwellings slumped across the sandy plains. Occasionally, when they thought I wasn't paying any attention, I saw Meina and James kiss in the back seat. I watched his hands through the rear-view but he didn't do anything untoward. It had been some time since I had seen a couple kiss as though they meant it. Perhaps I hadn't been looking.

  We ate dinner at an outdoor restaurant. James hardly spoke during the meal but at least he ate it. Then, without warning, he was crying silently. Meina tried to hold him but he even shrugged her off.

  They are a strange breed, black men. Some arrogant and insensitive, some lawless, some too humble and some downright mean. Most seem to think that their harsh circumstances make them different from everybody else. During my time in the Metropolitan Police I had a lot of dealings with young black boys, always certain in their minds that they had done nothing wrong. I know I had seeds of repugnance inside me then, dark and hateful because there was something about them that I couldn't ever know. Watching them didn't tell me anything; talking to them helped but it was never enough. There was something else. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was there, always putting something out of tune between me and them.

  I always thought that essentially people were the same, the past is the past, we all share the same level of existence with an equal chance to get through the bog of life and its pitfalls. Of course my views changed after my time in Somalia, after I met Ashvin and Armeina. For them things were different. I knew they wouldn't survive if I left them there and it was the same feeling I got looking at James. Mohamed was a simple man, fiercely loyal to old ideals, he had a good standing in his community but in the end he had nothing whatsoever to show for his years of hard work. He told me once: 'If you grow up with the stench of something foul, it takes a lot of scrubbing to rid yourself of the smell. It takes a lot of willpower to distinguish yourself from the stink, to remember the stink is not you.' James had never reached the level of security with his family that existed with other, normal, families. Violence and drugs had seen to that. I wondered what would become of him: a job he would become dependent upon? A house of his own? A decent wife if he was lucky, and kids he probably couldn't afford.

  James dropped his fork and looked up from his plate. 'Why are you staring at me like that?' he said. 'You're always looking at me funny. Do you know that?'

  I apologised.

  It was almost midnight when we finally reached Esperantina, one of the harshest, most deserted villages in the north-east between Fortaleza and São Luís. Our hotel, an old colonial building that used to house the state's first public prison, was down a long one-way road of naked rock, coffee bushes, carnauba palms and hummingbirds. After ringing the reception bell for over ten minutes we introduced ourselves to the couple who owned the house, a homely-looking white woman who may have been pretty once named Maria and her black husband Romao. He moved his arm from his wife's plump waist when he saw me and after our quick handshakes he planted a cigar in the breast pocket of my shirt.

  'My small gift to big white man,' Romao said smiling.

  'You are a crazy,' said his wife and he laughed and planted a kiss on her mouth. They were in their mid-seventies and they smiled with something like pride at their grandson, Ignacio, an ungainly but handsome sixteen-year-old. He waddled as he took slow steps up a staircase that was like a sturdy ladder and showed us to our rooms. I kissed Meina goodnight.

  'Goodnight, James,' I said, turning to open the door to his room. If he was upset with me for putting them in separate rooms he didn't show it.

  He nodded. 'G'night, Mr Bloom.'

  My room was nothing special. It was clean but lacked a woman's touch: no flowers, no sweet fragrance. It was spacious, the walls were bold blue and it had a grand four-poster. I sat down at a dusty writing table, stretched out my legs and lit the cigar Romao had given me. I flicked through the thick leather-bound Bible and then phoned down and asked for a large cup of whatever coffee I could smell brewing. At first I heard James's footsteps, but then they stopped.

  I opened my window and stared out at the deserted street.

  'What do you expect me to do now? Where do I go from here?'

  It took me a while to work out that it was James I heard shouting. I figured he was having a bad dream. I heard water from the shower running in his room, the toilet flushed and then his footsteps went downstairs. It was just after two in the morning. I went downstairs too and found James sitting at the dining table in a dark living room, drinking from a bottle of Coke. The lights were low.

  'That stuff isn't good for you,' I said.

  He grimaced. 'Leave me alone.'

  He spoke so softly I barely heard him. His eyes were bloodshot and full of tears. I stood beside him and watched the tears fall against his brown skin, his hair like bramble; he had a musky smell, there was sweat on his temples; he sniffed his nose in a battle with gravity and his dignity. I was about to leave him there alone when I suddenly thought of Ashvin. He had never really taken to me the way Armeina did. I could never reach him, I never really tried.

  'Your eyes are red. You must get some sleep.'

  'Let me be,' he said.

  'Look, you've been saying that for two days now. I heard you up there pacing the boards, up and down, just now. Armeina's a good kid, she's like . . . she's my daughter. For whatever reason she's taken to you. If you screw that up it will be one of the many mistakes in your life you'll regret. If you're serious about Armeina then I am going to be a part of your life, so why don't you tell me what's going through your mind?'

  He raised an eyebrow. 'Your daughter? You're a white man. And like every white man I have ever run across you define me in terms of my relationship to you. Why do you people do that? You think you're doing me a favour by just standing there. Well, you ain't. Maybe I'm doing you a favour.'

  James was much more worldly-wise than he looked. The last thing I wanted was an argument with a bereaved seventeen-year-old.

  'I'm sick of you looking down at me. Don't laugh at me.' He looked directly into my eyes, indignant.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I had always felt a sense of superiority towards black men. I liked the power I could have over them. As a policeman I could send them down to where they didn't want to be.

  James was a stranger to me but in many ways I felt like I had been trying to know him for ever. For an instant I thought I had turned into one of those phoney middle-class lefties, the sort I had hated most of my life, but I reassured myself. What I felt was a normal human emotion; after all, James was just a boy. Perhaps I was confused, I don't know. I held his gaze, wondering if this was what hope felt like.

  'I want you to be able to trust me. If I've learned anything over the years it is to have no fear, not even of the worst,' I said.

  I had never in my life had such a strong desire to reach someone. I gripped his shoulder momentarily as though I were the fragile child. He looked at my hand. I removed it and then I placed it back and I held him. He glanced up at me and he said, 'Nathan was lonely, and I know what it feels like, to step outside real life. I've been doing it for so long.' He started to cry. 'I want to feel alive again. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'll say. I'm afraid.'

  'Don't worry,' I said, 'it will be fine.'
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br />   In the morning, during a fine peal of bells announcing High Mass, Romao joined us for breakfast. He wore a smart shirt with a gold watch dangling from his white trousers and had a transistor radio propped lovingly on his lap.

  Ignacio wore old trainers and cut-off shorts to breakfast, exposing his chubby knees. We ate thin slices of ham and fresh hammock, warm home-baked bread, and fruit smoothies Ignacio called vitamina made from guava, passion fruit and peach. I had three cups of cafezinho that was served in tiny demitasse cups with sugar-dipped orange peel. James was wearing jeans, his skin golden against his white shirt, but he looked grumpy. He yawned and yawned again and hunched his shoulders over the table in a show of exaggerated boredom. After a short conversation, Meina turned to Romao and said, 'James wants to know about the monument with the big head.' She laughed at James, her eyes lit up.

  Romao looked over at the great monument in the square below, sipped from his cup and then lit the cigar that he had held between his strong, calloused fingers. 'Do you believe in God?'

  'No,' James said with an expression of contempt.

  'You are not happy?'

  'No,' said James.

  'I can tell,' Romao said. He looked at James and laughed. 'It's good. You would not be a black man if you were happy all the time in life. When there is drought you look for rain. Maybe you never find it but you do not stop looking. This is life, my friend.'

  James stared at Romao oddly for some time, almost with reverence. Romao gave him a patient smile while he undid a button on his damp shirt.

  'Very nice,' said Romao. 'So we are two men of the devil.' He poured himself a glass of rum, and filled a short glass for me. We clinked and he took a sip. For a long moment he watched his cigar burn.

  NINETEEN

  MEINA

  IT WAS JUST AFTER three when we arrived. The temperature had swelled well above ninety, like in the African sun. Inside the car the dashboard smelled as though it might be melting. I reclined my seat as far back as it could go, trying to withdraw from the fierce afternoon heat. I looked at Mr Bloom's flushed face.

  'I'm roasting,' he said.

  We travelled slowly from Esperantina to Santa Rosa in the highlands. Along the way I saw mules tied to wooden posts and wearing straw hats; I saw men carrying sacks on their backs. Black women walked with large water jars on their heads and men without shirts worked in the fields or rested their dusty boots against crumbling walls in the shade. I even saw a man with dead rats at his feet, selling poison; hawkers – some with stands, most without – sold roast corn and snake charms, just like home.

  We pulled up across the street from the address Nathan gave in his letter. It was a large house with a narrow brick walkway on the left side. The walls were peeling, the gate rusted at the hinges.

  'This is it. You're sure you don't want me to come with you?' asked Mr Bloom after he had parked the car.

  'I'm sure,' James said and got out. 'Could you open the boot?'

  Then Mr Bloom did a funny thing. He got out of the car too and offered his right hand. James took it and first Mr Bloom shook his hand firmly and then he pulled James close and hugged him.

  'Let yourself breathe in there,' he said.

  I didn't know what he was talking about.

  James struggled free from his embrace.

  'Where will you be?' I asked Mr Bloom.

  There was laughter on his face when he said, 'I'm going back south. Maybe I'll check out the mumita at the car rental, maybe I won't. If you need me leave me a message at the hotel, I'll check in every few hours. Either way I'll be back here in a couple of days. You have money, call me if you need me.' He pulled away from the kerb and blasted the horn as he drove off.

  I took one of the two heavy bags and the cake box and slowly James and I walked towards the iron gate. It creaked a shrill song when I opened it, the hinges scraping against their spring. Those across the street who seemed familiar with the sound looked up as I knocked on the brown door.

  And then I saw a woman and a boy who was bouncing a yellow plastic ball, standing there watching. She carried two shopping bags full of fruit and cut flowers. Her soft, dark eyes reminded me of a leading lady in one of those old black-and-white African films: narrow neck, dark skin, slender legs, wide hips and small full breasts completed the illusion. She was dressed simply in a white linen dress, a wide-brimmed hat and sandals. I wasn't sure how long she had been standing there. She looked alarmed. I saw her turn to look at the plume of dust that hung in the air from Mr Bloom's car. She looked at James, at his trainers, at his new jeans.

  'Oi, Carla, tudo bem,' shouted somebody from across the street. It was a postman, a fat man, well over six feet, in shorts and a blue shirt, holding a sheaf of letters. 'Tudo bem,' said Carla. The postman paused to check through his handful of letters and then waved and continued on down the street. I looked up at the sky when I heard a flutter of bird wings. Four crisp leaves circled against a wall in the breeze and drifted to the ground.

  I then found I could not take my eyes from the little boy. He had dropped his ball but still stood with his mother, fingering his pockets. He looked like James. He had inherited the prominent Morrison lips. He had the same shape of skull, the same broad forehead. He watched James closely. Then the boy peered at me as though he couldn't quite make me out and he huddled closer to his mother and nestled his face behind her dress, close to the back of her thighs.

  James wiped away a tear as a great red truck shot past. It left a strong smell of fuel and a cloud of dust.

  He paused and seemed to gather his strength. 'My name is James Morrison.'

  The woman walked slowly, hesitantly, towards James and stopped when she was very close. She tilted her head as she stared at him and tears appeared in her warm brown eyes. She smiled at me and then she opened her arms and wound herself around James, holding him to her body. 'James,' she said. And then she turned to her son, Ricardo.

  'Vocé é amigo do meu pai,' said Ricardo.

  James pursed his lips, straightened himself, making himself taller. His gaze fixed on his nephew.

  James shrugged and looked at Carla. 'What did he say?'

  Carla hesitated. 'He wants to know, are you a friend of his father?'

  James smiled down at the boy. 'I am your uncle.'

  Ricardo frowned indignantly at James and turned to his mother. 'Quem ou um uncle?'

  Carla laughed and then said gently, 'Esse é irmão do sev pai.'

  'Irmão do meu pai! . . . my father's brother!' He looked at James intently for a moment and then flung his arms around his neck and squeezed.

  Carla turned to me. She shut her eyes when we embraced. She smelled sweet, flowery – rosemary or lavender, I couldn't decide which. Her arms, soft and warm, had a bluish hue from the sun.

  James held Ricardo tightly for just a moment and when he released him he turned around, looked at me and then at the sun over the land behind the building.

  'Please,' said Carla. 'Come inside.' She spoke as if the thought had just occurred to her.

  James smiled at me and then breathed in deeply. He leaned back and put his arms around my waist.

  'After you,' he said.