An Obvious Enchantment

by Tucker Malarkey

  “I think alcohol has more to do with that.”

  “Well, now, you’ve got to make a few concessions to your new hemisphere, don’t you? First off, no one works hard here, not even your professor. Let’s give it some thought. How hard can he be working? For one thing, he’s managed to forget all about you. Bloody fool for doing that, I say. So put that nasty book away and let’s have a drink. Later we can wander companionably to some dark place and have a look at our beloved Southern Cross.”

  Ingrid slid her book into her bag and watched Danny drain his first beer. “I think I’ll take that walk now, while it’s still light. Would you like to come?”

  “Heavens no! A proper beach walk is very hard work.”

  Ingrid stood and smiled. “You know, Danny, in spite of your efforts to horrify me, I’m starting to like you.”

  She left the bar and walked down to the beach, leaving her sandals on a rock. The tide was low and the clouds were close to the ocean and moving fast, picking up light from the sea and the sun so it seemed they were lit from the center. She walked until she lost sight of the hotel and the village, until it was just the sea and the sand and the sun-misted air.

  There was something between Finn and Templeton that she couldn’t get near, and something in Finn himself that kept pushing her away. She thought of what she could say to him, to get him to talk to her. Let me in, I won’t spy on your solitude. No, that was a lie. His solitude intrigued her. She wanted to get closer to it, to him. But she did not know how to operate without the protection of words. As if amused, he watched her struggle. She turned and started back for the hotel.

  When Ingrid reached the rock where she had left her sandals, one sandal was missing. She circled the rock to see if it had fallen, but there was nothing but sand. Who would take only one shoe? Carrying her lone sandal back to Salama, she bought a fifth of whiskey from Jackson and retreated to her roof. She put the sandal in her suitcase. She would go barefoot now, like Ali. She poured herself a glass of whiskey and felt fortified. Screw Finn Bergmann and his marinated heart. Keep thinking, Ingrid. Think your way past him. He’s not really a part of this, not a part of you.

  She sipped her whiskey and studied the night sky, cycling ideas through her head until one of them caught. Cultures that lived under clear skies, Templeton had once said, incorporated the stars into the fabric of their lives. Desert cultures shared the complex clarity of the nighttime tapestry that blanketed them. In Egypt, Osiris and Isis shone into the hollow shafts of the Giza pyramids, lighting the way for the dead. Ingrid remembered standing with Louis in the burial chambers of the pharaoh, and in the smaller chamber for his wife.

  The tyranny of the present was its lack of interest in the past. She had learned to be calm in spite of her fury. In her brief century, sacred deserts had been irrigated and the blinding dimness of artificial light had blotted out the beauty of the night, the revolving sky. Ingrid poured herself another glass of whiskey and stirred it with her finger, dunking her only piece of jewelry into the glass. She removed and dropped her mother’s ring into the tumbler and looked at it from below. She held the glass to her mouth, draining the whiskey until the ring slid into her mouth. She held it between her teeth, remembering the story of a desert poet Templeton had told her about, who had languished in the insanity of so much clarity.

  Christ and Mohammed had also fled to the endless space of the desert, chased by those who feared their vision. And they were delivered there, by more visions. Under its piercing nights, they had seen something they believed was true. It was the strength of their belief that saved them, the human heart grasping at the possibility of the divine.

  She reread Templeton’s note by candlelight, tipped a corner into the flame and watched as it burned. When it got close to her fingers, she dropped it and let the embers extinguish themselves on the ground.

  Ingrid decided she liked being drunk in her new environs. She moved inside as if Finn’s eyes were on her, watching her as she undressed. She walked around the room as if dancing, as if this were the way she always walked, the beauty inside her fighting to get out. She slipped on her cotton nightie as if it were silk. This is who I am, she said to him silently. Watch me. This is who I am. She turned up the flame in her lamp and made her shadow dance on the wall. Consider it, she instructed her shadow. Consider the possibility that your beauty has strength, a soul.

  The latch to her door lifted and Ingrid spun around. Ali’s face flickered in the light. Ingrid reached for her shawl, too startled to speak.

  “I did not see you at dinner,” he said.

  “You cannot come into my room like this, Ali. Do you understand?”

  Ali smiled and stepped inside. “Finn comes to your room.”

  “What?”

  “Because he is white, you let him come.”

  “No, Ali, no—he sleeps here, that is all.”

  “He sleeps only. Yes,” Ali nodded and smiled his lupine smile. “I understand.”

  “Why am I even explaining to you? You are trespassing. I will tell Abdul.”

  “Abdul let me in.”

  Ingrid moved toward him, shaking, and shouted, “Out!”

  Ali retreated, placing a small envelope on the doorstep. “He said this was left for you.”

  Ingrid picked up the envelope and shut the door, propping the chair under the knob. After closing the curtains, she opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of paper. The handwriting was faint and unfamiliar. She held the note close to the candle. “Stop your searching. It would not be hard to prevent you. There is little you understand, and a fool is a danger to everyone.”

  Alarmed, Ingrid went down to the courtyard and called for Abdul. He emerged from his room, irritated. “Who left this letter?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. She could hear the lie in his voice. Feeling the impulse toward violence well up inside her, she forced her face into a bitter smile. “You don’t scare me, Abdul.”

  “I do not scare you because you are made of fear,” he said, smiling back with a kindness so false she had to turn away from him.

  The next day, Ingrid couldn’t eat. The air was heavy with storm. Clouds gathered but did not break; her clothes clung to her body, damp with sweat and humidity. She wrapped a kikoi around her waist, the way the island men did. The thin cotton fabric flapped around her legs, allowing the air to circulate. She surveyed the village from the edge of her roof and realized that she did not want to write about the island. She pressed the palms of her hands together and remembered herself before Pelat, remembered her strength, her clarity. Then she went inside and opened her laptop.

  Dr. Reed:

  No sign yet of Templeton, but I am making some headway of my own in his absence. The Swahili brand of Islam is fascinating: tolerant of paradox and open to a world we confine to the imagination. The Arab/African roots of Swahili culture have spawned a pairing of meanings, terms and rituals which manifested in everything from vocabulary—words like pepo have Bantu roots, whereas rohani is Arabic—to calendars; the African calendar (considered local—i.e., what the fishermen use) is solar and the Arab calendar (more orthodox, or Islamic) is lunar. There are even two kinds of settlements; the Stone town, which houses the more orthodox (and coastal) Swahili, and the Country village, where the more local, or African, population live, usually farther inland. These towns are economically mutually dependent and are enmeshed on many levels, including marriage. Not surprisingly, there are two names for God—Mungu and Allah. What’s striking is that such disparate worlds have peacefully coexisted for centuries.

  I have been studying the Koran. Classical Arabic is impossible to translate into English; we are missing the sacred. To hear it spoken, one can believe the sufic claim that it is based on mathematical formulas. It has both dimension and truth. It is replete with etymological stems that, instead of attempting to describe God in words, reflect his infinity.

  And do not drive away

  Those who call upon their Lord


  In the morning and the evening

  Seeking the essence of God:

  You are not accountable for them,

  And they are not accountable for you.

  So if you drive them away,

  You will be an oppressor.

  You see, it’s a smart religion. Outside of Araji, not all the jackasses in the department would understand it. Its power is daunting, perhaps too much so for your mighty Western mind. . . . I have nothing to say to you, really.

  Ingrid deleted the last paragraph. Before she could restart the report, her laptop battery went dead. She called Abdul upstairs to help her. Without looking at him, she held up the plug in a request for a socket. “I cannot help you,” he said.

  “Of course you can’t,” Ingrid said bitterly.

  In the hotel office, Ali looked on as Ingrid plugged in her computer and her adapter exploded. He jumped back and whistled. Ingrid kicked the garbage can.

  “I think there was at one time,” Ali offered, “a typewriter on the island.”

  Ingrid sat on the hotel terrace and waited for him. By the time he returned with the typewriter, the sky had blackened with clouds and the motionless air began gathering strength.

  The storm broke violently; the village roofs streamed from their gutters. Ingrid wrapped the typewriter in her shawl and hurried past rivulets of rainwater that ran alongside the path. She had not noticed the irrigation system before. Bits of garbage were washed away and a stench arose, as if weeks of crusty filth were being loosened and released. Quite suddenly, the rain stopped. The sun was brighter than before, with no humidity to divert its force. It banged against Ingrid’s rooftop like a cymbal. She wrapped a damp T-shirt around her head and sat down with the typewriter.

  Templeton, damn you, where are you.

  I am typing on the world’s oldest typewriter.

  It’s too bright to think, too hot.

  I feel I am falling apart in this sun and rain. I am

  afraid.

  I need to find you, you whom I no longer know,

  can barely understand. I can hear you laughing.

  How many times have you told me

  you need to lose your bearings to find new ones,

  to understand a new place you must lose yourself in

  its people, its god, its plants, its poisons.

  I think now that I have never done it before and

  comfort myself by thinking you would approve.

  Come back. I need you.

  Ingrid could feel that Sari had entered the room. There was no change in the atmosphere, no presence announced, just a darkness at the periphery of her vision, moving closer tentatively until Ingrid raised her head. Against her black robe was an envelope that seemed unnaturally white. She held it out like an offering. Sari’s forehead was wet with perspiration. “Poor Sari,” Ingrid said. “Kali sana.” It’s too hot for what you’re wearing, Ingrid wanted to say. Take that robe off and sit here with me on the cool floor.

  Their fingers met on the blank frontier of the envelope. Sari’s fingernails were bitten down to the skin: red strips had been peeled from her fingertips. Ingrid held one of her fingers in her own and smiled. “Poor fingers,” she said in Swahili. “Sad fingers.” Sari inspected them, holding them close to her face. “Ooglie,” she said.

  “No, not ugly. Tired. Sari’s fingers are tired.”

  Inside the envelope was a frond with an invitation etched on it. A party for Finn. He was going to be thirty. Please come to Salama at seven for dinner and celebration as Danny’s guest. Wear something little.

  CHAPTER

  20

  A Suitable Party

  Ingrid wore her only clean dress. A T-shaped table had been set for twenty under the trellis on the sand of the outdoor grill. Torches had been lit and the table was littered with jasmine petals. Cocktails were being poured from a pitcher by a black American named Rudy who came from a yacht in the harbor. Ingrid had met him through Danny at the bar. He was a bald, bearded man with a round belly and thick glasses. He smiled at Ingrid. “Have some miraa tea, but first remind me of your name.” A lithe tanned woman in very short shorts rubbed up against him. “This is Janine, my crew.”

  “Ingrid. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Oh, I know about you.” Janine smiled. “This is the one Danny was talking about yesterday.”

  Ingrid smiled into Janine’s bloodshot eyes. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing but wonderful things. Have you met Lady Emily?” Janine asked, gesturing toward a svelte woman with mangrove sticks in her hair. Tonight she had an animal hide pinned around her waist and floated past them in a cloud of perfume. Ingrid stared after her, mesmerized by the slits in her pelt that revealed, for anyone wondering, that she wore no underwear.

  “The island’s landed lady,” Rudy said. “Supposedly she came here on vacation three years ago and hasn’t left. That fellow over there is her lover. He’s a dirt-poor Kenyan but now he’s got English nobility backing his safaris. They lead boat trips up the coast, looking for elephants or something.” Lady Emily’s lover had white-blond hair to his shoulders and an angelic countenance. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to distribute some goodies. I’ll seek you out later. Oh, meet Onka. Onka, this is Danny’s American friend.”

  “I feel so free.” Onka smiled, touching her tiny torso. “I’ve just given birth. This is my first time out of the house in days. I haven’t met any of the new people. Have you been here long?”

  “A while.”

  “There’s Sabo.” Onka led Ingrid toward a heavyset black man who was deep in discussion with a large white woman. Onka stood next to him and leaned her blond head against his arm. “He’s my love.”

  Sabo smiled at Ingrid and held out his hand. “I’m chatting with a novelist,” he said in the queen’s English. “Judy, isn’t it? This is Judy. And you are?”

  “Danny’s American friend.”

  “Ah, well, Judy’s American too,” Sabo said.

  “I haven’t lived there in years,” Judy corrected him. She was draped in some kind of muumuu. “I spend my time here or on the Continent. I hardly consider myself American.”

  “What are you writing about, Judy?” Onka asked.

  “I never talk about my work. It interrupts the unconscious creative processes.”

  Onka laughed. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

  “I’ve brought some friends from London.” Judy gestured to a cluster of three women who were talking with bent heads. “We’re here for another few weeks at least. One of them is a spiritual healer. She has us doing sun salutations at dawn. You can’t believe how powerful her energy is.”

  “Ingrid!” Danny bellowed. “Extract yourself from those beastly women and come over here at once.”

  “You’re a friend of Danny’s?” Judy asked, failing to mask her distaste.

  “From America,” Onka added. Danny hooked Ingrid with his arm and pulled her close to him. He was surrounded by more European Kenyans, some of whom she had met before. “This is little Miss Muffet,” Danny said. “The woman who’s going to bear my children.”

  “Yes,” Ingrid said, smiling brightly. “We’re expecting.”

  “Congratulations,” one of them said.

  “Good Lord, Danny, are you going to be a father?” another asked.

  “That depends on Miss Muffet. Look, it’s time for dinner and still no Finn. We’ll just have to carry on without him.”

  “You’re sitting next to me,” Rudy whispered in Ingrid’s ear. Stanley Wicks sat across from her. His feet quickly found one of hers in the sand. She winced at the pressure and pulled her foot away.

  Wooden bowls full of soup were placed in front of them.

  “No cutlery tonight,” Stanley explained. “They seem to enjoy eating with their hands.” Later, he touched the tips of her fingers with his. “I hear you’re looking for someone.”

  “Everyone must know by now.”

  “He was lurking around Kitali for a time.”
Stanley forced a smile. “Is he supposed to be working there or what?”

  “I don’t know. I thought he was there, but he seems to have disappeared.”

  Stanley’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

  “It’s not that unusual.”

  “Perhaps he’s gone home,” Stanley said hopefully.

  “That would be unusual.”

  Stanley stopped smiling and tipped the bowl to his mouth. “God knows what’s in this. The tea was lethal enough.”

  “Was it?”

  “Never trust what people give you at these parties. You might not make it to the main course.”

  “Stanley, darling,” Daisy called from down the table. “Have you got my smokes?”

  “We just came from Malta,” Rudy said, sitting next to her. “Janine learned to make Maltese lace. That’s what we do. We sail to a place and set up shop; learn the language, learn the local craft, indulge in the local drug. But this is the best place. We always stay here the longest. Look at these people! Have you ever seen better-looking people in your life? The gene pool is incredible. And now they’re having babies. I can’t wait to see how they turn out. Onka had a baby four days ago and look at her. Onka, show her your stomach!” Onka stood up and raised her dress above her breasts.

  “Shame your boobs didn’t get any bigger,” Danny said.

  “Big breasts today, sag-bags tomorrow,” Rudy said. “I like ’em small and pert.”

  “Is this really dinner conversation?” Judy asked.

  “Where is Finn, for God’s sake?” Stanley asked. “Isn’t this his birthday?”

  “Of course Finn wouldn’t actually attend his own birthday party,” Judy said. “There’s a delightful perversity to this island,” she told the woman next to her. “Rudy, have you brought your black bag?”

  “I don’t come to shore without it, not here, anyway.”

  “I’d love a shot of B vites. Paradise is so unexpectedly taxing, don’t you find, Stanley? You should have one too. It really boosts the system.”

  “One for everyone!” Danny announced. “We’ll all be pep pep peppy!” He stood up and did a jig in the sand.