Cleaving

by Julie Powell

  “Did you get good pictures of the elephants?” Kesuma took the Coke bottle metal cap between his teeth and cracked it off. I squeaked in indignation.

  “Oh God, I wish you wouldn’t do that. It makes my flesh crawl.” I pulled out my cheap little digital camera and flipped through some of my shots, handed it over for Kesuma to see.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “They really, really are.”

  “They’re the biggest animals in the world, right?”

  Elly took a swig off his second beer before jumping in. “No, they’re not. Whales are bigger. Blue whales.” I nodded my agreement.

  “Whales?”

  “Yeah. In the ocean. Like gigantic fish, but they’re not fish, they’re mammals.”

  “Bigger than elephants? No!” Kesuma made an exaggerated expression of amazement. He is so articulate and intelligent and well educated that it’s startling when, as now and then happens, I discover some small gap in his knowledge. I tend to feel like he’s having me on.

  “When you come to visit New York, I’ll take you to the Museum of Natural History. They have a life-sized model of one. It’s enormous. Like a hundred feet long or something.”

  “No! Really?”

  We loaded up onto the truck after Elly and I had finished our two beers, and I dozed for the final forty minutes or so of the drive to the campsite at the crater rim. Now we’ve arrived. Elly and Leyan put up my tent, simple, but an enormous thing for one woman. Their own, for three men, is half the size. I ask them to switch, but Kesuma won’t hear of it. Then Elly goes off to cook our dinner—a fish for him and me, chicken and rice for Leyan and Kesuma. (Maasai, they tell me, don’t eat fish.) While we wait for dinner to be ready, we sit at long concrete tables at the dining enclosure, a sort of shed with a roof but no walls. There are probably six or eight groups here at the campground with us. Kesuma and Leyan are the only Maasai. The other tables are set with fine china, tablecloths. I wouldn’t be surprised to see candles. The other tourists are served by teams of cooks who set the plates down, then disappear into the cooking enclosure next door. Pasta, steak, sautéed chicken breasts.

  Elly, Leyan, Kesuma, and I gather around a plastic plate and some Tupperware. We eat with our fingers, pulling bits of flesh from the fish’s carcass, picking tiny bones out of our teeth, wiping our greasy hands on our pants legs. Elly and I drink the two beers we brought with us from the bar. Afterward we carry our dishes back to the kitchen area, which Elly washes while, as everyone else begins trickling out to tents and beds, Kesuma, Leyan, and I gather at our concrete table and play cards with the I NY deck I brought from home.

  First Kesuma and Leyan teach me—well, try to teach me—a game called “lasty card.” (For some reason people here have a tendency to add y to the end of all kinds of English words. “Lasty” for last, “chesty” for chest, “lefty” for leftovers. I find it odd and slightly grating.) I never really get my mind around lasty card. But I do impress them with my tremendous shuffling skills. This is something Eric has told me to expect. Apparently no one else in the world can do the arching style of shuffling that Americans do. I’m no good at it at all, though I learned at my grandmother’s knee. (No matter how arthritic her hands got, Granny could always shuffle a mean deck of cards, and she was, to my ten-year-old eyes anyway, a regular sharp when it came to solitaire.) But though I’m no good, everyone grins in disbelief when I do it.

  Then I try to teach poker, but I’m no better an instructor than I am a shuffler; Elly, who’s by now joined us, is the only one who can really master it.

  We’re the last folks in the dining area. We play probably three or four hands before Kesuma and Leyan decide to head to their tent.

  “You want to play a little more?” Elly asks. I’m pretty sure I know what’s on his mind, but I pretend I don’t.

  “Sure. You think you could rustle us up another beer? Just one to share, maybe. And maybe a cigarette?” This is Julie tempering recklessness with caution. One beer. One cigarette. A few friendly hands of five-card draw. Perhaps I’ll venture into the realm of stud poker, if I’m feeling crazy.

  Elly does manage a beer. A heavy guy comes over, middle-aged and with a slightly leering look that would make me the tiniest bit uncomfortable if I were to think much about it, which I don’t. He asks me the usual questions—my name, where I’m from, how old I am—then chats with Elly in Swahili before handing us the beer bottle, a cigarette from his crumpled pack, and a lighter for us to borrow. Then he leaves, off to bed as well, one presumes. The flicker of flashlights illuminates only one or two tents now; the only electric light on is here in the dining enclosure, with the exception of a couple of bare bulbs over the doors of the bathrooms a few steps away. We crack open the beer and, passing it back and forth between us, along with the cigarette, continue to play betless poker, mostly in silence, except when I occasionally explain at the end of each hand who has won. It’s possible that our knees touch from time to time. We play until eleven, when the generator goes out, plunging us unexpectedly into darkness. I realize that the moon is strong, the stars unbelievable.

  “Well, I guess that’s our cue.” I start to gather the cards into their plastic case. But Elly just sits there, straddling the bench, his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped, looking up at me with a smilingly uncomfortable stare I try for a moment, unsuccessfully, to ignore. Maybe I don’t really want to ignore it.

  “What?”

  Elly laughs a little, shakes his head. “I’m thinking about asking if I can kiss you.”

  I find myself thinking back, trying to remember if anyone has ever asked to kiss me. It seems like something that happens only in the movies. In real life, kisses always come after I’ve said something like “So, yeah, I gotta go home now,” or “I’ve got a dentist appointment tomorrow,” or “I think I’m drunk.” Some sloppy air of inevitability is always there, mesmerizing but uncontrollable. I think maybe I like it this way, for a change.

  “I’ve never kissed a mzungu before.” He matches my wry grin with his own, and says, “May I?”

  I pause a moment, pretend to consider, though of course I’ve already decided. “Sure.”

  And so he does. He kisses me, and his lips are soft and he tastes good. Since we both drank the same beer and smoked the same cigarette, I detect neither of these things, only a clean smoothness and perhaps the slight sweetness of a mint. It has been so long since I’ve kissed—or made out, actually, for that’s rapidly what this is becoming, my knees between his, my hands running along the outsides of his thighs, our tongues tangling, his fingers in my dirty, dusty hair. I’d forgotten how fun it is.

  After a while we stop. I’m not sure who stops first; I was just thinking about breaking off, but it seems that Elly pulls away just slightly ahead of me. “Whew,” I say.

  “That was nice. Thank you.”

  “No, thank you!”

  “I have to finish packing up for tomorrow’s lunch now. I’ll walk you to your tent.”

  “Okay.” We stand up and start off into the moonlight.

  Elly takes his voice down several notches. “And you won’t tell Kesuma? He wouldn’t like it.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “Good.” By now we’ve reached my tent, which I unzip as Elly gives me a little wave and steps away. “Good night. See you tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  I’ll admit that I’m feeling pretty proud of myself as I get ready for bed, changing out of my khakis, bra, and grimy long-sleeved T-shirt, into soft cotton pajama pants and another clean shirt. I’m proud that I was kissed, and by a gorgeous young man who must be ten years younger than I. I’m proud that I was brave enough to say yes, and then strong enough to bring things to a stop, or help them to a stop, anyway. I’m proud that I’m alone in a tent on the Ngorongoro Crater, far from everything I know, and that I like it. I could just about whistle a jaunty tune.

  I’ve just f
inished taking out my contacts and running a toothbrush across my teeth a couple of times and am setting the alarm on my phone—I get no service here, but I still use it as my clock—when I hear a whisper at the door of my tent. “It’s me.”

  Elly, back to say good night again or tell me something about tomorrow or, most likely, ask for another kiss or something more. I’m nervous, amused, and irritated in equal measure when I scoot over to unzip the door.

  But it isn’t Elly. The moment the zipper comes down, a large man pushes his way into the tent, blocking the exit. It’s nearly pitch-black inside the tent, but I know instantly, and with a violent lurch of the stomach, who it is. I have no flashlight. I scramble for my phone as the man who’d sold us the beer and cigarette grabs me by the arms, running his hands up and down them roughly in some absurd childish mimicry of passion. He’s speaking to me, pleading rather:

  “You are so beautiful. I have big dick for you, I have what you need, I’ll be so good for you, yes, let me have the sex with you—”

  I push a button on my BlackBerry to light up the screen and get a look at his face. He’s pulling me to him, his tongue probing for my mouth, one of his hands abandoning my arm to grab at my breast. I wrap my arms tightly against my chest while still trying to let the little glow from my phone illuminate the room, and push him gently—why gently?—away.

  “Why do you have that on? Turn off the light. It’s okay. Relax.” I’ve backed into the corner of the tent, but he’s getting his hands everywhere he can manage.

  “Hey, look. Look. I’m sorry if I”—if I what?—“gave you the wrong impression.” By being a white woman and staying up eating and playing cards with some black men. “I’m sorry if you thought—” I’ma slut because you saw me making out with Elly. “Look. Thanks.” Thanks??!! “I appreciate … um … well. I think you need to leave now.”

  “No. I’ll stay. We’ll have sex. It will be very good, I promise. I am good man, big dick—”

  “No.” Still shielding myself from his hands by clapping my arm across my bosom, with my other hand I push, a bit more firmly, against his biceps. My phone, still lit, clutched in that hand, illuminates the sleeve of his shirt as it presses against him. It is red. “You need to go. Please.”

  “But—”

  “No. Really. Please go.”

  “Okay.” His hands cease to grab at me. He’s already backing up through the unzipped door of the tent.

  I’m shining the light of my BlackBerry on his face like I’m interrogating him.

  “It’s okay. Calm down.”

  “I’m calm. Really. Just… thanks, but go now, please. Really.”

  And he does.

  I zip up the tent, and all the windows, which I’d had open to let in some air. Curl into my sleeping bag and zip it all the way too, though it is not at all cold. All the noises outside seem magnified. At one point I can hear something—one of the zebras, I presume—tearing up blades of grass with its teeth, seemingly right on the other side of the quivering tent wall near my face. I clutch my BlackBerry in my hand like it’s a weapon.

  It never once occurs to me to cry out.

  Somehow, at last, I fall asleep. When I awake, it’s still pitch-dark, with none of the morning sounds of coming dawn. But that’s not what I take in. All I’m aware of, instantly, horrifyingly, is the smell, and the hot body pressing up against my back.

  For an amazingly long time—seconds upon seconds—I feign sleep, curled up on myself like a possum, my breathing deliberately slow and deep and even, trying not to reveal myself to the man who has crept back into my tent while I slept and is now leaning over me like a lover. As if I could make him go away by just pretending he isn’t there. I flash suddenly on those horrible nights, the worst nights, when Eric’s rage boiled silently between us and I squeezed my eyes shut tight; I think about the dreams of not being able to scream.

  But he’s slipping his hands into my sleeping bag, he’s panting loudly into my ear, he’s muttering under his breath, and then, my God, he’s clambering atop me, trying to work the sleeping bag down. I can feel his hard-on through the layers of polyester and fleece and denim. And at last, at last I fight.

  At first it’s just a few girlish pushes against his shoulders, a few mewling whispered protests and wriggling, which doubtless have the exact opposite effect I desire. But gradually I get more violent and, finally, angry. I end by slapping the top of his bald head repeatedly, while hissing, “What the hell are you doing?! Get off!”

  He cowers when I hit him and sits up, holding his arms up over his head to evade my blows, but I’m too busy pawing around the floor of the tent for my phone to get in any more.

  “What are you doing? What are you looking for?”

  “I’m looking for my damned phone so I can see your face when I’m telling you to get out of my tent.”

  “Stop looking. You’ll find it in the morning.”

  It’s nowhere to be found. I’m patting around inside my sleeping bag and under it, in the far corners of the tent where my clothes and backpack and shoes are bundled.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “No. You really, really won’t.” I’ve given up on the BlackBerry and am applying fairly heavy-duty pressure to his arms, forcing him slowly back toward the tent door.

  “I won’t do anything. We’ll just lie down together.”

  “What the fuck? Get out!”

  He gets truculent, which seems a dangerous sign, but I’m now too angry to care. He says, “You don’t want me to stay?”

  I bug my eyes out at him, actually laugh. “Are you kidding me? Not sure how I can be much more clear on this.”

  “But I’d be—”

  “Look. Do you want me to call out to my guide? He’s right in the next tent. He’ll get you in trouble.” As if I’m going to tell the teacher he pushed me down on the playground.

  But that at last seems to do it. Finally he’s scooting out butt-first, pouting as if I’d been the one to mortally offend him. “Fine. If you want me to, I’ll go.”

  “Thank you. Jesus.” I zip up the tent door in a rage, pat around a bit more for my phone. It isn’t here. I know the man took it. I have to piss, but I’m scared to venture out into the darkness.

  I manage somehow to fitfully doze until dawn, having dug out my chunkee stone and clutched it to my chest. I figure if he comes back, this is my best choice of weapon. But he doesn’t come, and soon enough I can hear people making reassuring noises, not the tiny creeping sounds that might be either zebras cropping grass or furtive footsteps, but creaking truck doors opening and slamming shut, the unzipping of tent doors, low conversations as the cooks from the various guide groups begin breaking out the breakfast supplies. Still, I’m afraid to leave my tent—or maybe afraid is the wrong word now. I get dressed, then huddle by the window that faces the cooking area, knowing Elly will be heading in that direction. I want to tell him first. I don’t want to be the one who has to tell Kesuma.

  It seems like hours—especially because my bladder is by now about to burst—but I probably spend less than ten minutes peering out the window before I spot him heading over from the tent to our truck. “Elly. Elly!” I call in a hoarse stage whisper. He looks up, glances around, finds the source of the call. I wave him over to the tent window with a sort of embarrassed grimace. “I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

  I tell him the short version first, just, you know, “That guy we bought the beer from last night got into my tent. He…” I’m having a tough time coming up with the word. Elly’s eyes are already wide in alarm, and I don’t want to make a big thing out of this. “He… well, he wanted to sleep with me, I guess.”

  “He came into your tent? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. But the thing is, he took my phone. I don’t want to make a big deal, I just—”

  “Wait here.”

  Within minutes Kesuma, Leyan, and Elly are all gathered with me outside my tent, their faces taut with concern, as I go over the sto
ry again. Kesuma bites his thumbnail as he always does when deep in thought or concerned. “So you bought a beer from him.”

  “Yeah. Well, Elly did, really.”

  “And then he came into the tent after?”

  “Right. Twice.”

  “Did you say anything to him to give him the idea you were—”

  “I barely said anything at all.”

  “It’s true, he was only there for a moment,” Elly confirms. He’s standing with his head bent, to hear everything I’m saying, but also, I know, I feel it coming off him, because he feels ashamed and responsible.

  “Elly, would you be able to find this man?”

  “Yes, he works with one of the other tour groups. He’s a cook. I’ll find him.” And off he strides toward the cooking area.

  Kesuma crosses his arms and looks this way and that, taking in the breadth of the campsite. Dawn has fully arrived now, and a steady trickle of tourists move back and forth from the dining area to the bathroom to the trucks. The tents are beginning to come down. Everyone wants to be at the park entrance the moment it opens. Obscurely, this delay makes me feel guilty, like I’m creating a mountain out of a molehill, making a scene.

  “Look, he didn’t hurt me, it’s not a big deal, I just… I’d like to get my phone back.”

  Elly quickly finds the guy; a big man who looks sheepish and wide-eyed at once. As they walk toward us, Elly is talking to him intently, and the man is shaking his head in exaggerated innocence. I’m angry all over again at the sight of him. Kesuma straightens up as the two approach.

  “Julie says you came into her tent twice last night. That you tried to take advantage of her.”

  “No, no, I swear—” His head is bobbing as if he’s not sure if he wants to shake it or nod. “Okay, yes. I came to her tent. I wanted to be with her, and she is very beautiful—” Kesuma interrupts in rapid-fire Swahili, and the man answers back, and though of course I don’t understand the words, it’s clear that Kesuma is lambasting him. People are beginning to stare. The man switches back to English, turns to me. “I am very, very sorry. It was very wrong of me to come to your tent. But I went away, when you asked me to, yes?”