The Uttermost Parts of the Earth

by Frederic Hunter

  “Not so far I couldn’t come see you.” She grinned at him. “Who goes to Cancun when they can get to Zaire?”

  “Who wants sun,” he mimicked her inflections, “when she can get shot?” Livie stuck out her tongue at him. The gesture excited him. He had an impulse to stop the van and seize her. Shit shit shit! How damned inconvenient of her to appear out of fucking nowhere. Typical of her to come walking out of the jungle as if she were returning from a mall.

  “How is law school?” he asked. “Other than being a great way to lose weight.”

  “Want to see how much I’ve lost?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is there some place where I can show you?”

  What the hell was he going to do with her, Kwame wondered. He was certainly not going to touch her.

  They regarded one another, each of them amused, both knowing he wanted to behold her unclad again, to see how thin she looked, to kiss the ribs that showed through her flesh and the points of her hips. Livie smiled. “You must have a bed,” she said, “and a bedroom door we can lock.”

  Kwame looked away. He was not going to sleep with her. If he did, Kalima would never trust him. And how could he expect her to? He would not want her sleeping with Vandenbroucke if he walked out of the jungle.

  “Let me show you the center first.”

  Livie examined him. He carefully watched the road. She surveyed the rear of the vehicle. “Were you going somewhere?” she asked.

  Kwame told her of the rumors about refugees entering the Equateur and his desire to check them out.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked.

  He guffawed. “Talk about dangerous! What possessed you to come here now? Kinshasa’s a powder keg with the fuse lit.”

  For a moment she stared at children playing, at laundry spread to dry on bushes as they drove through the cités. She decided to risk the truth. “I realized I would never forgive myself if something happened to you and I hadn’t seen you again.” She smiled provocatively. “Things must be pretty dull if you’re going looking for refugees. Can I come? I’d love to see the Africa tourists never see.”

  “Keep your eyes open,” he told her. “This is it.” He added, “I can go to Ingende tomorrow. Or the next day.” He wondered how long she intended to stay, but he did not ask her. “One day or the other, it’s all pretty much the same out here.”

  “Not if you’re a starving refugee,” Livie said.

  “If they’re really starving,” Kwame told her, “if they’re really coming here, then this is not a place you want to be. Or that I’ll want you to be.”

  “Will you come back with me?” she asked.

  He said nothing and watched the road. She said nothing and watched his face.

  OUT IN front of the center le snack was beginning to serve lunch. Buta and the other Zaireans looked surprised to see Kwame with a slim, blonde américaine. He nodded to his friends and took Livie inside the center. He introduced her to Lofale, who had begun to work full days, and to Tata Anatole, showed her the film and video collection, and took her into the office. Kwame made sure the door stayed open. The tata stood in the hall outside as if waiting to be called. His presence made Livie uncomfortable. “Is he always there?” she asked.

  “Always,” Kwame said.

  “Can’t you send him on an errand?”

  “That would set tongues wagging.” They regarded one another. Livie scrutinized Kwame as if they had just met and she could not yet read his thoughts. “You’ll find that you’re an object of intense curiosity,” Kwame said.

  Livie waited for his move. He thumbed through the stacks of unopened mail. “Would you like some lunch?” he asked.

  She examined him again, went calmly to the threshold, smiled at Anatole, and closed the door. She said, “I sort of thought you‘d see me and want— To do something else.”

  “I do want to,” Kwame said. He did want to. But he was not going to.

  The assurance seemed to relieve her. “But maybe we should talk first, hunh?” she asked. “That’s cool. It has been awhile.”

  Kwame felt her impulse to come to him and—damn his body’s hunger!—he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her, to be in bed with her, not to rekindle memories, but because she seemed like a stranger, as mysterious as Kalima sometimes seemed, a traveler from a distant land he had once known, but no longer knew. He wanted to go exploring, to know who she was. But he let the impulse pass.

  She smiled, realizing that he was holding himself in check. “Still a person of the mind,” she said.

  “They’re watching us out there,” he said, nodding toward le snack. “If I kiss you, everybody will start looking in the windows.”

  “The ‘American Presence’ can’t kiss his girlfriend?”

  “Africans are extraordinarily—” He spoke the word that came to mind. “Pudique.”

  “ ‘Pudique?’ Chaste?” said Livie. “ ‘Modest?’”

  “I speak so much French out here I forget—”

  “You forget ‘chaste’?” She laughed.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Africans never kiss in public.”

  “And we are in Africa,” Livie said. “When in Mbandaka …”

  They had beer and fried, salted plantains and papaya at le snack and sat where everyone could watch them. And everyone did.

  “Did you come out here alone?” Kwame asked. “Things are—”

  “Just a little dangerous?” Livie said, finishing his thought. “Refugees are about to swamp this place and Kinshasa is eerily quiet. It feels as if the entire citizenry is locked up behind shutters, waiting for the terrible battle everyone expects.”

  “You felt that?” he asked.

  “It’s as palpable as humidity,” she said. Then she added, “No, I didn’t come alone. Mike wouldn’t let me.”

  “Mike’s the man with room in his apartment?” Livie nodded. “And a thick wallet,” Kwame noted, “if he escorted you all the way out here.”

  “He finished Harvard Business School a couple of years ago and is doing very well. He wants to be married to someone like me.”

  “To your type? Or to you?”

  “We haven’t figured out yet which,” she said. “You always said I’d end up with someone like him.”

  Once again Kwame wanted her very much. He asked, “Where is Mike now?”

  “In Kinshasa. I told him he absolutely could not come here with me today. I had to have time alone with you.”

  They looked at each other a long moment. Kwame felt the old life pulling him back. He glanced away because, with the first traces of maturity in her eyes and with the lines that would one day appear on her face already forming, she seemed more beautiful than ever.

  “When’s he get here?”

  “Day after tomorrow,” she said.

  “We can pick him up at the airport and drive down toward Ingende,” Kwame told her. “Unless we go down there tomorrow.”

  “He would not allow me more than twenty-four hours,” Livie said. “But I insisted on forty-eight.” She watched him. “So there’s still time for us to get to know each other again.” Kwame nodded. She added, “Mike and I can talk. He insisted on coming all this way out here with me. But you’re the person I can really talk to.”

  Livie examined him closely because it was proving surprisingly difficult for them to talk. At last she asked, “You didn’t fall in love with the Zairean woman married to the Belgian, did you? Your letter sounded as if maybe you had.”

  After a moment Kwame said, “Well, I certainly didn’t expect to.”

  Livie looked away and took a swallow of beer. Then she examined him again. “Can we still be together?” she asked. “I mean: if she’s married, does it matter what we do?” Kwame said nothing. Finally Livie asked, “Can I meet her?”

  “She’s gone to her village,” Kwame said. He did not look at her. At last he said, “I’m going there myself in a few days. To marry her.”

  “Oh,” Livie said.

  For several moments they
fussed with the plantains on their plates. Finally Kwame asked, “How do you like this African food?”

  “Hate it!” she said. Then she laughed. “I hate African women too,” she declared. She made a mock-pout and they laughed together.

  “Are you doing bridewealth?” she asked. “The whole bit?”

  “You know where to get healthy goats?”

  “How many?”

  “Twelve. A lot of cash too.”

  “You really love her, hunh?”

  He nodded. “She’s carrying my child.” Livie looked a little surprised. But she managed to grin. “Thank you for not saying, ‘You’ve been busy.’ ” Livie laughed. “She’s very pleased to be pregnant. For an African woman—”

  “I have done some reading,” Livie said.

  “I do love her,” Kwame said.

  “Are you bringing her back to the States?”

  “Not for a while.”

  Livie looked carefully at him, but said nothing.

  KWAME TOOK Livie to the Afrique. Tombolo put her into the room the Moulaerts had used. As soon as she was settled, Kwame took her out to Bomboko Congo, got her an Orangina, and found her a place to sit in the garden. Then he sought out the Badekas. They had already heard that he had been lunching at chez Kalima with a beautiful white woman with hair like gold. “Can you help me show her around this afternoon?” Kwame begged. “And have dinner with us? And can I spend the night here on your floor?”

  “Are you afraid of her?” asked Badeka.

  “I don’t want Kalima ever to think that I slept with her.”

  “Kalima’s not an American,” laughed Badeka. “She’s a Mongo. She doesn’t care.”

  Kwame looked from Badeka to Théa and back. Was Badeka kidding him? “I don’t believe that,” he said. “Kalima threw Marike out of my room when she thought—”

  “That was Marike, an ambitious Congolese schoolgirl,” Théa said. “This woman has come all the way from America to see you.”

  “She would expect you to sleep with her,” insisted Badeka.

  “Don’t you want to sleep with her?” asked Théa.

  “Of course, he does,” said Badeka. “He’s a man, isn’t he?”

  “Then why are you afraid?” Théa asked.

  “Because he’s an American,” Badeka said. “They make everything complicated.” He grinned and turned to Kwame. “Go ahead and sleep with her,” he advised. “If a woman comes from America to see you, you should be a good host.”

  “Impossible!” Kwame said. “I will not have Kalima thinking that I’m interested in her only until the first white woman appears.”

  “Is that what she will think?” Théa asked. Her gaze was amused.

  Kwame did not know how to answer. So what would Kalima think?

  “Do you suppose she wants to win from a failure of manhood?” Théa asked.

  “She would prefer to know that you tasted them both,” Badeka assured him, “and chose her.”

  Kwame felt confused. Appropriate middle-class American behavior lay in one direction; proper Mongo conduct lay in another. American attitudes would say that Mongo conduct promoted indulgence and AIDS. Mongo attitudes would contend that middle-class American behavior denied the reality of physical being.

  KWAME AND the Badekas showed Livie the sights of Mbandaka. Théa made them a simple dinner and they all went together to listen to local rock ’n’ roll at a nightclub. The Badekas left early, complaining of lessons to prepare. Kwame and Livie watched the combo and chatted until after midnight. When they returned to the hotel, Kwame waved to Tombolo in the bar and walked Livie to her room. She unlocked and opened the door and let it stand ajar. “Come in and talk to me,” she invited. “I don’t really feel that we’ve talked at all.”

  “So how is law school?” Kwame asked. He sat on the railing opposite her doorway.

  “I’m supposed to tell you about law school while you’re sitting there?” She scrutinized him. “We’ve never had trouble talking. Why is it so hard now?” He shrugged. “You’ve always been so articulate.”

  “Professorial and boring?” He laughed. “I guess my vocabulary’s shrinking.”

  “Is it because you’re getting married? Aren’t we still friends?”

  “I hope so.” He added, “I think my vocabulary really is shrinking. I haven’t articulated anything remotely complicated since I got here. Not even to myself. I haven’t read a book in months.”

  “Come in,” she said. “We’ll talk complicated stuff. Can’t you?” Livie gazed at him a long time. “This is really what you want?” she asked. “Marrying Africa?” He nodded. “You really want to turn your back on all you’ve worked for?” He nodded again. “You have such a great contribution to make back home.”

  “Do I? I feel more comfortable here.”

  “You have so many friends at home,” she said. She put her hand on his chest. “So many people are counting on you.” She kissed him—as a friend.

  He swallowed. Her kiss had tasted sweet.

  “I love you,” she said. “I’ll always count you among the most important people in my life. Maybe the most important of all.” She kissed him again, very lightly, and gazed into his eyes. “But I’m afraid for you.”

  “Don’t be. This is what I want.”

  “You’re going to be a kind of Rip Van Winkle. You’ll be in this place where nothing happens except for violent, tribal convulsions every ten or fifteen years. And then you’ll come out—”

  “Maybe not.”

  “You will!” She tapped on his chest as if she knew him better than he knew himself. “Your mind will get hungry for stimulation. You’ll want to talk ideas with somebody! But you won’t ever catch up with our world. It’s moving too fast.” She took his hands and looked deeply into his eyes. Her own eyes clouded with tears.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. He knew she was right. He would want to return, maybe with Kalima, maybe not.

  “I’ll still want you then,” Livie said. “I’ll always want you. But the way we live is changing. When you come back, it’ll be like we’re spinning on different tops, mine much faster than yours, so much faster you can’t jump onto it.” She implored him. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  She kissed him again, softly. The lightness and the nectar of her taste made him want her. And the smell of her, the feel of her thin, needful body pressed against him, the throbbing of the blood pounding in his head, the dim redness behind his closed eyes, the action of blood in his groin. He felt her moving and he followed her. They entered her room. He heard the door close. “Talk to me,” she begged, but they kept kissing. He felt himself whirling, sliding, slipping away from Mbandaka, away from Kalima’s world into Livie’s, the world where he had grown up and he still belonged. The sweetness of her absorbed him and he who had traditionally been a person of the mind became a person of the moment. Impulse spun him, whirling, whirling, and when the spinning stopped, hours had passed and he was holding Livie as he always had and she was sleeping, smiling, holding tightly onto him.

  AS DAWN came up across the river, Kwame got coffee and rolls from the hotel kitchen and brought them to the room. He and Livie ate, then lay back in bed and at last words came to Kwame. They talked. Livie told him about the challenges and delights and the drudgery of law school, about prima donna professors and her classmates, some of whom had already washed out, and about living in Boston’s South End. She discussed national politics and how legal training had affected her attitudes toward it and about issues that interested her: bolstering education, reducing poverty and racism.

  He tried to explain what it was like living in the remotest part of the remotest part of the world: the allure of quietude and the great stillness, the glory of primordial rhythms, the rising and setting of the sun, the majesty of the clouds, the flow of life. He acknowledged the slackening of his intellectual vigor and its replacement with silence, watchfulness, his acceptance of man’s smallness, and his need for harmony with the natural world.
r />   “What’s it like to love this African woman?” Livie asked.

  “Simple,” he said. “Not at all complicated.” He was quiet, then sensed that she wanted to hear more. “Sex is easy here. It’s a sex-conducive environment.” Livie frowned. “As opposed to, say, Victorian England,” he explained, “which was not conductive to it, with its emphasis on respectability and etiquette and Christian religiosity.” Livie nodded, pleased to hear him talking again like a professor. “Here it’s natural. No guilt attaches to it. Traditionally there’s been little to do at night. And it’s too hot to wear anything to sleep in. Flirtation and sex are primary modes of recreation. Extramarital contacts are widespread as they’re bound to be in polygynous societies. Until AIDS came along there were no adverse consequences. Everyone wanted children and a girl’s becoming pregnant out of wedlock occasioned no shame. In fact, it confirmed that she could produce offspring. That encouraged suitors.” Livie smiled as if she could understand why Kwame found its simplicity attractive. “Out here,” he went on, “men and women need each other to complete themselves. And to produce young. That’s seen as the purpose of life.”

  After a moment of quiet Livie asked, “Will there be adverse consequences to your being here with me?”

  “I hope not,” Kwame said. “I feel badly about it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Don’t you? I’m engaged to be married.”

  “But there’s so much for us to sort through. And this is part of it.”

  “My feeling badly: I know that means I’m reacting like an American. But I’m not marrying an American.”

  “I honestly didn’t intend to seduce you,” Livie said. “At least not last night. I really wanted us to talk.”

  “You didn’t seduce me,” Kwame assured her. “You pulled me back into American society. Our parts of it are very sex-conducive too. These things happen. And I needed to be pulled back before I took the leap. I needed to test what I really want to do.”

  “So it wasn’t a bad thing?”

  “Maybe not. Now that I’ve had the test.” Kwame stared at the ceiling for a long time. “Maybe I’m crazy to think of taking the leap.” Livie hoisted herself up onto her elbow and gazed at him.