“A good general policy for someone like you. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“I’m pouring iodine on a pad and I’m going to dab the wound. It will hurt.”
“Bloody bloody hell.”
“You learned that from Danny.”
Ingrid lifted her head. The tendons in her neck rose with the effort. “I want to see it.” Finn lifted her foot. “I can’t see anything.”
“There’s not much light. It’s just dawn.”
“What does it look like?” Finn didn’t answer. Ingrid drank a bowl of bitter liquid and watched him sideways as he read in his chair. “Read to me.”
“This is Arabic.”
“I like Arabic. Why are you taking care of me?”
“Because you are sick. Now close your eyes.” He began to read. Soon she stopped him.
“What did that mean, what you just read?”
“It says, ‘We never sent a prophet to a city without affecting its people with misery and distress so that they might become humble.’ Fatima pointed it out to me. She’s becoming optimistic. Things have become worse and she’s happier.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Just sleep. I won’t stop.”
“What has gotten worse?”
Finn looked out the window, toward the sea. “Boni lost his hand.”
“How?”
“Fishing. It’s Wicks’ fault.”
“How can that be?”
As Finn started to read again, she was distantly aware of the stops and starts of his voice. “Translate, please,” she said. “I am trying to understand.” The passage did not grab her. She stopped listening as soon as it began. She held her hand in front of her face. Her long hand. The hand Stanley liked. “Maybe Stanley didn’t like Boni’s hands,” Ingrid suggested, remembering that Stanley was her friend. Finn only felt responsible. “I spent the night with him,” she said. “It was like medicine. Good clean sex. I thought of you—please don’t stop reading.” Ingrid folded her hands on her chest like an Egyptian corpse. “You’re a slippery and cold man.”
Finn closed the book. “Boni’s dead.”
Ingrid wanted to reach for him, but she was frozen. Finn stood up. “I’m going to get some food,” he said. “You need to eat.”
When she woke again, Ali was kneeling by her bed. The sun was high. He was almost close enough to touch. He was all in white. From above, he looked like an angel, which made her suspicious. She held her hand out to touch his curls and felt only air. Perhaps he was a figment. “Why are you in white, Ali?” she tried. “It’s daytime.”
“I have come from Friday Mosque,” the figment answered. “I have been praying for my soul.”
“Why are you here?”
“Finn told me to come. He told me to kneel with no prayer mat until my knees bled.”
“How clever of him to tell you what to do. I didn’t know that was all it took. Can you leave if I tell you to?”
“I would like to pray for longer.”
“You see, this is how Finn and I are different: you listen to him.”
A warm cup was pressed into her hand. Finn’s voice was above her. “Where has he gone?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Ali.”
“Ali hasn’t been here,” Finn said. “He won’t be back.”
“He was praying right here, all in white. He looked like an angel.” Finn had his hand under her head. He was holding another cup to her lips. “See how trusting I am. This could be arsenic. Pure poison.”
“You’ve already been poisoned.”
Ingrid tried to smile at him. “Can you get me some whiskey?”
Finn squeezed her arm. “No.”
“Please.”
“I’m going to read to you now.”
“When you see Danny, tell him to visit. He and I are simpatico on some things.”
Finn opened his sea-warped copy of the Koran.
“Finn,” Ingrid said. “What are you going to do?”
“Be quiet now,” he said, and once again began to read:
And We will set up the scales of justice
For the day of reckoning:
And no soul shall be wronged in anything.
And be it the weight of a mustard seed,
We will bring it forth:
And We are well able to take account.
“On the day of reckoning,” Ingrid said. “The good will have water. It will spring forth from rocks and sand. The bad will have fire. Not just fire, but scalding fire.” Ingrid smiled. “In the water which God sends down for the strong and with which he revives the earth after its death . . . Water in the desert. It’s where he is. I can almost promise it.”
When she woke she was alone, burning, and the room seemed strange. Her hair was limp from not washing. Her scalp itched. Something smelled hideous. She pushed her way out from under the mosquito net and put her feet on the ground, one after the other. It was the difficult time of night. The air was thick and still as death.
As soon as she stood, she fell hard to the floor. A scorching pain burned through her and for a horrible moment she felt every cell in her body. There was wetness around her foot, the moisture of infection leaking into the bandage. It was she who smelled. She was rotting. She crawled out of her bedroom to her sink and held her head under the feeble faucet until the water ran down her neck to her shoulders. She arranged a bed of pillows on the porch, shivering from the damp, determined not to burn alive in her room.
Finn came in the early morning. She wanted to know where he had been and with whom but she couldn’t manage to ask. He carried her wordlessly to her bed and laid her down gently, arranging her wet hair around her. Still, she was shaking. He laid his chest across hers, hoping to press the cold out of her. She chattered, barely breathing.
Finn held his face close to hers and brushed his lips against hers. “You’ve got malaria. I’m going to give you a pill. It’s going to make you sick but then you will get better. I will stay with you tonight, but tomorrow I have to leave.”
Ingrid shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“You will get stronger now. Remember that.”
Finn did not try to stop himself. He kissed her forehead and then her lips.
CHAPTER
27
Pelat’s Son
The next morning, Finn left Ingrid in Sari’s care. At the bottom of the stairs was Abdul, positioned to intercept him. He darted out of the darkness like an angry mongoose. “She cannot stay here any longer.”
“She cannot leave. She is sick.”
“This is not a hospital. Or a brothel. And she spreads her disease of promiscuity to Sari. I cannot have her here another day.”
“Well, I’m afraid there’s no alternative.”
“I would not let a woman of mine behave this way.”
“She’s not my woman.”
“Your whore?”
“No, not my whore.”
“Then what?”
“Abdul. I will come back for her. I’ll move her to the hotel.”
“Soon.”
“As soon as I can.”
Abdul stepped aside and motioned to the door.
Finn found Fatima outside, doing her washing. “I need to sleep,” he told her. “Just for a while.” He lay on the mat he had lain on as a boy. With his eyes closed, he looked almost at peace. There were some things, Fatima thought, that hadn’t changed. When her washing was hung, she sat down and watched him.
“This girl of yours,” Fatima began when he woke. She waited for him to correct her wording but he only covered his eyes with his arm so Fatima could not see his face. “What does she want?”
“What does anybody want.”
“I had hoped she would recover and leave the island.”
“I had hoped the same. But,” Finn added, “probably not for the same reasons.”
Fatima rose and began preparing tea. “And,” she finally said, “what are those reasons?”
“She is my responsibility
.”
Fatima dismissed this claim with a honk of laughter. “Responsibility! If you’re saying you’ve made her pregnant, I can make you a tea for that.”
Finn shook his head. “I’ve never been with her in that way.”
Fatima abandoned her tea preparation and sat down again. “Tell me what knot has tied itself inside your head, so we can begin to untie it.”
“Wicks has gone to Kitali.”
“Do I care about Wicks’ movements? I wish the man’s blood would dry up and he would stop moving altogether.”
“That’s a very unchristian sentiment, Fatima. You may remember I was born a Christian. It’s a Christian war that’s being fought on this island. Wicks and Templeton are like my father, all Christians, all men who have forgotten their God in their wars of ownership and superiority.”
“Your father is not someone you might want to imitate.”
“My father was a man who lost his God. I am the same.”
“You are not the same,” Fatima protested.
“I have ignored his teachings.”
“Whose teachings, your father’s? You’re talking like a madman!”
“Even if you understood, you would pretend not to. You would like me to act, I know. You’ve been waiting for years. The trouble is, I may not be able to act in the way you would like.”
“It is not for me you should act.”
“Who, then?”
“You should act for your people. You should lead them and help them to understand what is happening around them.”
“Who are my people?”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“All I know is that I should have acted for Jonah and Boni. They were my brothers. They followed my example and you see what’s happened? They’ve lost what little they had.” Finn removed his arm and rubbed his eyes. “But you know, they had more than I ever did.”
Fatima was holding the edges of her chair. “This is not good for sleep, this talk.”
“Forget sleep. Do you know what I believe, Fatima? I believe that actions come from pain, or maybe it’s love. But I believe that fate can be changed by them. I think this is a Christian belief.”
“Actions are fate, Finn. Every day you are fulfilling yours. It’s Allah’s will—”
“And what about my will?” Finn interrupted.
Fatima was silent. “And the girl?”
“The girl has done nothing. She simply asked for my help.”
“There is nothing simple about that.”
“No, I don’t agree. Helping her would do me great good. I told her about ghaflah. I accused her of this sin so she would leave me alone. What I should have said is that I am the best example of it, that it is I who have forgotten my divine origin.”
“Finn—” Fatima held her fist toward him. “You are a flower just about to bloom. You have been tucked inside of yourself, in darkness. You cannot blame yourself for a late arrival. You must accept the plan for your unfolding.”
“Fatima, there is no plan,” Finn said, and then he rose. “In all your talk of God, you never talked to me about love. Not once.”
“Love is Allah. He is all around you.”
“He is not in this heart.”
“Then you must open it and fill it with Him, my son.”
Finn knelt in front of Fatima and took her hand in his. “But you see, I am not your son.”
CHAPTER
28
Plans and Blueprints
Stanley Wicks was frustrated. The progress he had made aboard Tarkar, utilizing the products he had researched, purchased and brought thousands of miles from Europe and America to the African island, had been erased with one random mishap. Boni and his damn hand were being blamed wholly on the wire line Stanley had given him. He had been doing the man a favor. Was it his fault if Boni had no common sense? It was brutally unfair that he should be regarded as some kind of criminal. Even his boatman, Abdul, was looking at him with shifty distrust.
The island experience was changing for Stanley. The worst immediate consequence of all this was that he was driven back to his house, which he had happily managed to avoid for the past few weeks. In its rooms, he was forced to think about what he knew was happening under his own roof, the indiscretions that everyone on the island was aware of, that Stanley himself had managed to dismiss until they were under his nose. Now he was sure he could all but smell the juices of sex that were flowing between his wife and her ridiculous body worker. For all he knew, the nanny was in on it too, all three of them rolling around while the baby howled in the next room.
Domestic displacement and stalled progress at Kitali had resulted in even later nights at the bar. Stanley was beginning to see himself in the regulars there, drinking to dull fears of impotence and various failings of character. It had not taken long for him to become like them. He could think about this now only because, by luck, chance or divine intervention, he had stepped back over the line into safety. His recent interlude with Ingrid had given him the strength to reclaim the future he had almost forfeited. Simple human contact had been enough to galvanize him, to jolt him from his stasis. He was ready to be a part of it again, a warrior prepared for battle.
Stanley flung himself into plans for the new hotel, which were hopelessly behind schedule. Instead of accepting Gus’ excuses for the third world (the man was so passive, so defeated!), he was going to turn up the heat where it would have some effect. His good behavior was lost on these island cretins anyway. Gus was too stoned to care, the workers paid absolutely no attention to him and the Salama entourage was too self-involved to notice if he was or wasn’t being a gentleman.
Stanley decided to set up camp on the other side of the island, to keep an eye on construction. Nelson took him over on Tarkar, loaded with provisions. In preparation for a long stay, Stanley had brought with him the blueprints, flooring and kitchen designs, everything he needed to allow himself to dream. This would be no Salama. It would be a place for thinkers, writers, gentlemen and ladies. Academics, even, like Ingrid Holtz—if she had been staying at his hotel, she never would have taken such a bad turn. This would be a healthy place, where old wounds were healed and no new wounds were incurred.
Excited, Stanley got up and paced around his shelter. People would come at transitional junctures in their lives, the way he had first come to Africa, and they would be gently steered in the right direction by the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. A diet of fish, strong in protein for mental stability, and fresh produce, the stuff Mohammad had in his village. He wouldn’t need to make airplane runs to Mombasa for lettuce and tomatoes—he would use what was already here. Still to be resolved was the question of water. They would need it for the produce, for drinking, plumbing, laundry, irrigation for the grounds and God knows what else. Stanley left his shelter and found Gus driving stakes into the sand.
“How are we coming on the water issue?”
Gus looked at Stanley from beneath the rim of his hat. “Bad news there, I’m afraid. The water is not actually on your property.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Gus, because someday this hotel will be finished, and then we’re going to have to think about things like faucets.”
“Mohammad said we were welcome to dig, to divert the water at the source. We tried.”
“And?”
“It dried up. Just sank into the sand. Used pipe, same thing happened.”
“Then we’ll have to divert it farther down. Mohammad seems to have it all worked out over there. Talk to him.”
“Well, that’s the other part of the bad news. They’ve got something of a live-and-let-live policy as far as your hotel.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t bother them, they don’t bother you. That includes digging around in their village for water. They say it’s on sacred ground.”
“Then I’ll buy it from them, if that’s what it takes. I can tell you one thing, they’re not going to run me off this land. I can see that’s
the intent.”
“I don’t know if brute force is the answer here. Sit down, Stanley. Take a load off.”
Stanley was too exasperated to sit. “You’d have to be a brute to see this mystical posturing for what it is and steamroll right on. Well, Gus, I am a brute and I’m past caring about the gods they worship and their legions of spirits and goddamn curses.”
“This is a side of you I haven’t seen,” Gus said. “The English terrier.” He lit a cigarette and offered one to Stanley. “How’s Daisy faring?”
“Daisy’s fucking her masseur.”
“I see.”
“I’m one step away from shipping her back to England, but God knows what damage she’d do there.” Stanley sat down and dragged heavily on his cigarette. “To be honest, I’m worried about Harry. What sort of childhood is he having? Perfectly awful sourpuss of a nanny and a mother who’s fucking Attila the Hun in the next room. You know, children notice these things. They’re not insects, for chrissake.”
“Bring her here. No trouble in sight. Old Mohammad might be able to teach her a thing or two.”
“The Gandhi of Pelat. He puts on airs, if you ask me.”
“He’s done his share of thinking.”
“Well, I’d like him to think about a little profit sharing. Get smart, Gandhi. Join the modern world. Tell him I’d like his help, will you?”
“Help with what?”
“Once we resolve the water issue, there’s the question of produce. We’re going to have to feed our guests. Does he understand that? They’re coming from the first world, where this stuff is easy to come by. Here it will have to be plentiful as well as extraordinary. You don’t fly halfway around the world to be served wilted iceberg.”
Gus stubbed out his cigarette in the sand. “I believe Mohammad’s clan grow enough only for themselves.”
“Well, they can grow more, can’t they?”
“They’re superstitious about it. They think if they ask for more than they need, they might be denied everything.”
“Tell them I’ll pay them.”
“Your currency means nothing to them.”
“What has value for them? I’ll convert it. Talk to the man, will you?”
An Obvious Enchantment Page 28