Somebody's Heart Is Burning
Page 27
“Oh yes,” she said sympathetically, upon hearing my story. To my embarrassment, I had started to cry again while I was telling it. She patted my arm awkwardly. “All right.”
She called the American Embassy doctor at his home number. His voice had the particular music of South India. He spoke to me at some length, asking lots of questions.
“The young doctor was quite right,” he said at last. “It is most probable that the malaria was already gone. It showed up on the test simply because some of the dead cells remained in your bloodstream. The symptoms you are experiencing now are side effects of mefloquine. It produces different responses in different individuals. For some the effects—dizziness, vivid dreams, et cetera—can last up to two weeks. You must rest now. Tomorrow, come to my office and we will perform another test.”
Just as he had suspected, the test showed no malaria. Crisis averted, I had no more excuse for avoiding the telephone office.
A bored-looking woman slapped a scrap of paper onto the wooden counter in front of her and instructed me to write down the number. She then showed me into a wooden booth with a paneless window and a phone with no dials. Beside the phone a low wooden seat came out of the wall. Through the window, I watched her attempting the connection. When she got through, she would signal me to pick up the phone.
Sweating in my wooden cubicle, my heart knocked ferociously against my chest. What would I say to him? What could I say?
The operator nodded at me. “You may pick up now,” she said.
I lifted the receiver. “Hello?” I shouted. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said Michael groggily. “What time is it?”
“Sweetheart, listen,” I said. I spoke in a rush, fearing the connection might break. “I want to come back to you. I know I said I wasn’t sure, I wanted to leave things open, but I’m sure now. I got sick, and I realized a lot of things. About what’s important. I want us to be together. Will you wait for me, sweetheart?”
A long silence followed my proclamation.
“Hello?” I said after thirty seconds or more had passed.
“When?” he said in a flat voice.
“What?”
“When will you be home?”
“A month. Two at the absolute most. I’m almost out of money, anyway.” I giggled nervously. “I would head straight home, but my brother’s coming to see me next week, and he’ll be here for two weeks. We’ll probably do Zanzibar, maybe another safari in the Serengeti. Then I just want to visit the island of Lamu; everyone says it’s amazing. And I heard about an orphanage near the border of Ethiopia where I could volunteer maybe for just a week or two. And then home. That’s it. But most importantly, I’m ready to make a commitment now. No more leave it open, wait and see. Two months, tops, I’ll be in your arms.”
Again there was a long silence.
“Hello?” I said.
“It’s too late.”
“Please don’t say that, sweetheart.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “I know I’ve put you through hell, but . . . I didn’t realize. Everything’s new now. Didn’t you say I was the finest creation of the universe?” I babbled. “That you’d never love anyone the way you love me?”
“If you’re serious,” he said suddenly, “come home tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. Tomorrow. And we’ll talk about it. I’ll see how I feel.”
“Yes, I mean, that makes total sense. But, you know, my brother’s coming next week. Why don’t we compromise. One month. I’ll skip the orphanage. Just two weeks with him, then a super-brief look at Lamu—”
“Tanya! You don’t get it, do you? There’s no room for haggling here. This isn’t a marketplace. I’m compromised out. Let someone else compromise this time. Let your brother travel alone! Yes, I love you, Jesus Christ, of course I do, but there’s someone fifteen minutes away who loves me, who wants me, who thinks I’m just as exciting as the island of Lama—”
“Lamu.”
“What?” Silence. “And anyway. If I take you back now, who’s to say you won’t leave again next month—”
“I won’t.”
“Or next year? You’re a traveler, and I can live with that—I love who you are—if I knew that you’d come back to me, if I knew that you’d at least be faithful to me.”
“I will! I told you, I had an epiphany. I’m sure now.”
“You’re sure now, but how sure will you be once you have me safely back in your camp? Once you’ve proven to yourself that you can get me back anytime you want?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
We sat in silence this time for more than a minute while the line crackled with static. My eyes and nose were streaming. I tried to breathe quietly. Through the window of my wooden booth I saw the operator looking at me with curiosity.
“Tanya,” he said at last. “I love you. Get on a plane tomorrow or the next day, and we’ll talk. Okay?”
Yes, I thought, yes. Why couldn’t I say yes?
“Okay?” he said again, his voice cracking.
Back in my empty room, I lay on the bed staring up at the still spokes of the ceiling fan. The power was out again. My body created a damp impression of itself on the sheet. I was playing a little game where I’d turn my head sideways, then turn it quickly back toward the ceiling. Each time I did this, the spokes of the fan appeared to turn for a moment and then grind to a halt.
I’ve got to go back, I thought. But he hadn’t promised anything. He’d said we’d talk. What if I flew home, disappointing my brother, who was traveling all this way to see me, only to find that Michael had chosen this other woman? And Lamu— everyone said it was idyllic: a peaceful, sunny dream. No cars, only donkey carts. People who returned from there looked rested, happy. Perhaps there was something to be discovered there, some important bit of wisdom that couldn’t be gleaned anywhere else. Stop it, I berated myself. There’s always another place. My brother’s visit, though—why was Michael so stubborn? He’d waited this long; what was three more weeks?
I flashed on Michael’s presence then, the warm curve of his back, his morning scent: a loamy blend of soap and sweat. The way he sang made-up songs in my ear as I woke up: It’s going to be a beautiful day . . . Tanya’s going to make the ocean spray . . . She’s going to laugh and shout and play. . . .
My heart expanded painfully in my chest. I loved him. That’s what this feeling was, wasn’t it? Love?
I closed my eyes, Michael’s song still unraveling in my head. On the tree there cries a bluejay; people eat Grapenuts and horses eat hay. . . .
As I floated away on my mattress, I saw donkeys, one after another, plodding down a dusty trail toward the sea.
Author’s Note
In the early 1990s, I was fortunate enough to spend a year in Africa, mostly in the western part of the continent. This book is based on memories of that year. I offer it to you, not as a journalist or a scholar, but as a storyteller. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the identities of those involved. Characters, conversations, and events have occasionally been combined or streamlined to evoke the essence of the experience more clearly.
During my time in Africa, the AIDS virus had not yet taken its toll in an obvious way on the places I visited. This isn’t to say that no one had contracted the virus, but that the scope of the problem had not yet become apparent, especially in West Africa. In that sense, this book offers a glimpse of a bygone era. Not an idyllic time, by any means, but one in which the preoccupations of the communities and individuals that I met were different than they are today, when this disease has claimed so many millions of lives.
Acknowledgments
My deep gratitude goes out to the following people: Ali Caddick (née Bacon), travel partner extraordinaire, who listened to my scattered scribblings with unflagging enthusiasm; Jonathan Lethem, under whose wise guidance this material began to find form; Carol Lloyd, without whose intervention these stories might still be sitting under my desk in a dust-gath
ering heap; Don George, who shared his excitement and published many of these stories on Salon.com; Jeff Greenwald, who generously and skillfully helped steer this book through crucial stages of development; Elena Felder and Laurel Carangelo, beloved house-mates and insightful readers; Tanya Pearlman, Larry Habegger, and James O’Reilly of Travelers’ Tales Books, also Kristin Herbert and Brad Newsham, all of whom contributed valuable suggestions and support along the way; Amy Mueller, for expert dramaturgy; David Dower and the Z Space Studio, for time, space, and encouragement; my agent Richard Parks, who ushered the manuscript through the world with kind and diligent attention; Maura Santangelo, in whose Umbrian farmhouse I completed a substantial chunk of the rewrites; my editor Edward Kastenmeier, for guiding me gracefully and adroitly toward the finish line; Russell Perreault and Sloane Crosley, for making me feel so supported by Vintage; Stuart Friebert, Diane Vreuls, and the late Del Fambrough, great teachers who instilled in me a love of language and respect for words; Debbie deNoyelles: dear friend, great reader, great travel companion on the road of life; Richard Talavera, who held onto the original documents and taught me a lot about unconditional love; the individual Moroccans, Ghanaians, Burkinabes, Ivorians, Togolese, Malians, Tanzanians, and Kenyans, too many to list, who blessed and astonished me with their openness and generosity; and finally my family: Harry and Betty Shaffer; Juliet Shaffer and Erich Lehmann; Len Shaffer; Ron, Mary Frances, and Gabriel Shaffer; Sophia Lehmann, Jonas Duke, and Jacob Lehmann Duke; David Green, the Green family, and Niblet; all of whom supported me throughout this process in innumerable ways.
Tanya Shaffer
Somebody’s Heart Is Burning
Tanya Shaffer has spent much of the past decade wandering the globe and writing about it. An actor as well as a writer, she has toured nationally and internationally with her award-winning solo performances Let My Enemy Live Long! (based on her African travels) and Miss America’s Daughters, and her original play Brigadista. Her travel stories have appeared on Salon.com, in Speakeasy magazine, and in numerous anthologies. A native of Lawrence, Kansas, she now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home. Visit her on-line at www.TanyaShaffer.com.
A VINTAGE DEPARTURES ORIGINAL, MAY 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Tanya Shaffer
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Departures and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The photos courtesy of Ali Caddick. The photo courtesy of Ultimate Africa Safaris Inc. All other photos courtesy of the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shaffer, Tanya.
Somebody’s heart is burning: a tale of a woman wanderer in
Africa / Tanya Shaffer.—1st Vintage Departures ed.
p. cm.
“Vintage Departures original.”
1. Africa, West—Description and travel. 2. Shaffer, Tanya.
3. Women travelers—Africa, West—Biography. 4. Travelers—
Africa, West—Biography. I. Title.
DT472 .S45 2003
966.03’29’092—dc21
[B] 2002193353
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42787-8
v3.0