by Anita Shreve
I can’t imagine what part love plays in this. It was impossible, from the outside, to tell.
It would be best if we could meet some time between the 28th and the 3rd. Perhaps the 1st? I am, literally, counting the hours until then.
Thomas
P.S. Today’s headline: BABOON SNATCHES BABY.
January 27
Dear Linda,
We delude ourselves. We delude ourselves. Meet me anyway. Please. In front of Petley’s Hotel, Lamu, twelve noon, the 1st. We will go for a walk.
T.
Below them lay plains of scrub trees that were already casting precise shadows on the barren ground. Grasses undulated like a familiar crop in an unfamiliar heartland, and vast papyrus swamps threatened to devour entire countries. The pilot — ultimate cool: feet on the console, smoking a cigarette (wasn’t that illegal?) — flew so low to the ground that Thomas could see individual elephants and wildebeests, a lone giraffe, its neck craning to the stuttering sound above it. A sky blue–cloaked moran with a spear walked from one seemingly empty place to another, and a woman in a red shawl carried an urn atop her head. Thomas saw all this — watched the rosy light turn the lakes turquoise, watched the light of dawn come up as theater — and thought, In six hours, I will see her.
If Thomas had understood the pilot correctly, they were flying without a generator, which Thomas had been assured could be done, provided they didn’t stall, necessitating a restart of the engine. The pilot, who had longish hair and a short-sleeved suit jacket that narrowed at the waist (like something the Beatles might have worn years ago), had seemed supremely indifferent to the trip and had given Thomas the choice of deciding whether or not to turn back when he’d discovered the errant generator. Thomas, thinking of Linda standing in front of Petley’s Hotel at twelve noon, had seen no alternative, and somewhere over Voi, he’d decided that the plane would not plummet from the sky as punishment for his intended infidelity. As if he’d not been unfaithful every moment since he’d first seen Linda in the market. Still, he could not stop himself from imagining a fiery death in a desolate place where no one would ever find him.
In the distance, he saw a village of huts with grass rooftops and nearby a pen of animals. Cattle, he imagined. And he thought, as he had often thought before — although this time with a finality that brought a kind of resolution — that Africa was, after all, impenetrable. It was ancient and it was dignified in a way no other continent could equal, its soul unblemished, even with all the Wabenzis and the Swiss accounts and the parking boys. And being unmarred was unknowable. He’d seen it on the faces of the women and their preternaturally calm eyes in the face of disaster, and in the shy smiles of the children, constantly tickled by some joke understood only by them. And he accepted — as Regina with her academic mission could not; or as Roland, who made pronouncements, could not — that he, Thomas, was no more significant in this country than a single member of the herd of wildebeests migrating west beneath him (less significant, actually). He was merely a visitor, destined to move on. So that Ndegwa could never be entirely known to him, nor Mary Ndegwa, nor even the woman who washed his shirts in the bathtub (particularly not the woman who washed his shirts in the bathtub). Although — and this was odd — he had a distinct sense that they knew him, that he was, as Regina had once said of him, as transparent as glass; his own soul, for all its current turmoil, as easy to read as a bowl of water.
—You’ll want that strap pulled tight, the pilot beside him said.
In preparation for landing, the pilot sat up and put both hands on the wheel, which was reassuring to Thomas. He himself could not be a pilot — he hadn’t the math — though the job seemed pleasant enough, even thrilling. The pilot pointed to the coast, a pale peach scallop against the liquid blue of the Indian Ocean, and as Thomas’s heart began to beat slightly faster with proximity to the place where he would see Linda once again, he thought how unlikely the entire venture was, how very nearly it had not happened at all. Rich, unhappily, had contracted a wild bout of malaria on safari and had had to return with Thomas and Regina to Nairobi. Causing Thomas, after Rich had been admitted to the hospital and then sent home with a battery of drugs, to have to invent a reason to fly to the coast, which they’d only just left, using the barely credible excuse that his new employer had mandated it. It would be a quick trip, he’d told Regina; he’d be back before Thursday. And she, weary from the dirt and boredom of safari, had not seemed to mind, or even, to be truthful, to notice.
The plane left the continent below, circled the Swahili archipelago of Lamu, and landed on a runway in a mangrove swamp on nearby Manda. Thomas thanked the pilot and said he hoped the generator got fixed soon. The pilot (Thomas was sure the liquor breath was from the night before) merely shrugged. Thomas made his way to the place where sailing dhows with wide lateen sails waited to ferry the passengers across to Lamu village. He placed his gear in an overcrowded boat that reminded him of refugees from Vietnam and gave its captain eighty shillings. He found a seat next to a woman dressed head-to-toe in bui-bui, so that only her eyes — dark and kohl-rimmed — were visible.
The muezzins were chanting already from the minarets as Thomas stepped ashore — a haunting and melodic string of vocal sounds in a minor key that, for Thomas, would forever be associated with love and the foreknowledge of loss (so much so that in future years just the sound of a muezzin chanting in the background of a news broadcast about Palestine or Iraq could make his throat catch). He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder. The heat was immediate — paradoxically enervating and seductive. To walk was to swim through water up the hill, past Harambee Avenue, toward the museum where the editor of the magazine (Thomas, to turn a lie into a truth, had asked for and received an assignment) had told him he might be able to secure lodgings. Thomas followed a map, losing himself in a warren of narrow streets with shops and cafés and stone houses sealed with intricately carved wooden doors. Along the cobbled streets that ran up the hill from the harbor (streets on which no cars ever drove), there was a hint of coolness that tempted him away from his route. Men in kanzus and kofias eyed him speculatively, while women in black bui-bui with babies cradled in their arms glided silently past. Donkeys brayed constantly, and underfoot cats athletically avoided his feet. In the gutters, open sewers ran, giving off a sickly, sweet stench.
He asked directions and was shown the way to the museum by a boy who ran ahead of him with a stick. Thomas had to hustle to catch up to the boy, who waited for him patiently at each corner, just as he waited silently for his tip when he’d delivered Thomas to the museum door. Thomas stepped inside and barely had time to notice the replicas of ancient sailing vessels and heavy plates of silver before a woman who looked vaguely official asked if she could help. He said he was looking for a man named Sheik. Ah, said the woman, Bwana Sheik was away. Thomas offered his own name. A smile and an envelope were produced. On the envelope were written directions, and inside was a key, surprising Thomas, who had not known that phone calls had been made and arrangements negotiated in advance of his arrival. There was no mention of payment, and Thomas guessed it would be impolite to suggest one, having no idea what favors might have changed hands on his behalf.
The boy with the stick who had led him to the museum was waiting for him when he emerged, and Thomas was only too happy to hand over the envelope with the address. The boy led him through a maze in which cooking smells competed with the sewer stench, to a narrow building with an unprepossessing door. Thomas had expected a room or at best an apartment, and so was surprised when the boy unlocked the door and led him into an inner courtyard of what appeared to be a house. Thomas was confused and would have queried the boy had the key not fit so easily in the lock.
A bald, Arab-looking man in an apron — presumably a servant — emerged from the shadows, dismissed the errand boy with a bark, and introduced himself as Mr. Salim. Would Thomas care to look around before Mr. Salim brought him cold tea? Thomas checked his watch as he’d done just ten m
inutes earlier, vaguely afraid, on this exotic island, that time might spool ahead of itself with its own set of rules. Yes, said Thomas, he would look around, and he would be grateful for a glass of tea.
The servant disappeared into the shadows. Thomas stood for a moment in the courtyard, open to the sky, its narrowness casting cool shadows on the stone floor. A low well was at its center, surrounded by yellow flowers, and in the corner was a pawpaw tree. There seemed to be a kitchen on the first level, though Thomas did not venture inside, unwilling to disturb Mr. Salim at his preparations. Instead, he went up a flight of stairs with sculptures in recessed niches, a sense of water flowing over stones. The stairway led to a second level, meant as a kind of sitting room, with low carved furniture and bleached-cotton bolsters. Engraved copper and silver plates and large ceramic urns decorated the walls and niches. Still the stairs went up, and on the third level, open to the sky, Thomas discovered bedrooms with canopied beds and mosquito netting. There was a jasmine tree near one of the beds, and frangipani on a coral terrace. The perfume of the flowers filled the rooms and erased the smells of the streets. He looked at the roofless bedroom and thought to himself that it must never rain in Lamu, and he wondered how that could possibly be true. Exploring further, he found a bedroom with a basin of fresh water and washed his face and hands. Above the marble-topped dresser on which the basin rested, a hibiscus tree rose, bright blooms against the navy of the sky. As he left the room, he saw that someone (Mr. Salim?) had placed jasmine blossoms on the pillows.
The servant had prepared a meal of eggs and yogurt and cold tea, which Thomas accepted gratefully at a table in the courtyard. He wished the Arab man would linger, for he had questions — Who owned the house? Did people like himself often stay there? — but Mr. Salim had vanished into the kitchen. Thomas ate the eggs and yogurt and felt as though a benign spirit (or at least a mildly sympathetic one) had arranged his astonishing good luck; and it was hard not to take it for a sign that what he was about to do was, in a world that might run parallel to his own, accepted — perhaps even encouraged. But then, in the next instant, thinking of Regina at home nursing Rich back to health, Thomas put his hands over his eyes. It was pure delusion, he knew, to imagine that this trip was acceptable in any universe.
______
He saw her walking toward him, and he ground out his cigarette with his shoe. She wore a sundress of white linen that fell to midcalf, and she held a scarf around her shoulders to cover them. She had dressed respectfully, as women on Lamu were advised to do, and yet Thomas saw, as she approached, that every man raised his eyes to stare at the blond mzungu. She’d worn her hair up in a knot at the back of her head, but still the gold, in that village of dark skin and bui-bui, turned heads. Another bit of gold, the cross at her neck, seemed wildly out of place in the Muslim town, but he was glad she hadn’t thought — or hadn’t chosen — to hide it. A Swahili man, beside her, carried her suitcase and seemed particularly short next to the tall, willowy woman walking toward Thomas, who stood at the front of the hotel. For a moment, neither spoke nor moved, each supremely conscious of the porter beside them, of the men in the streets who watched her still.
—Linda, Thomas said.
They embraced. Chastely, as a couple might in public, with no kiss or prolonged touch. The skin of her arms cool under his fingers. Wordlessly, he turned and tipped the boy who waited with the suitcase. Thomas picked up her bag. I have a house, he said.
She only nodded, which he took as permission to lead her there. They walked in silence, Thomas having memorized the way, neither of them willing to break the spell that had enveloped them in front of Petley’s — one of anticipation within a framework of restraint. He watched her sandaled feet emerge from the hem of her dress, felt her elbow brush his arm from time to time. Above them, the muezzins again began their chanting from the minarets, and the world seemed suffused with both the religious and the sensual, qualities he’d always associated with the woman beside him. They weren’t precisely shy with each other, though Thomas was certain they shared a sense of moment; that each was, beneath the calm exterior of a couple moving slowly forward in the heat, supremely aware of bargains being made, lifelong contracts that might have to be honored.
He found the one door out of hundreds that would open to him, and he wondered, as he put the key into the lock, how precisely to deal with the matter of Mr. Salim, who would surely emerge and want to be introduced to the mzungu woman and would ask her if she would like a glass of cold tea. But, in the end, Mr. Salim did not appear, and it was Thomas who had to ask Linda if she wanted a cool drink. She shook her head slightly, her eyes never leaving his, despite her exotic surroundings. He stood still a long moment, watching her as well, and then took her hand and led her up the stairs to the third floor where the beds were. The muezzins had stopped their chanting, and birds, strange creatures with mournful cries, picked up where the holy men had left off, as mockingbirds will do. He shut the heavy wooden door of a bedroom.
She touched his scar. Ran the tips of her fingers lightly along its edges.
If there were words now, they were just names, exclamations possibly. Whispers of astonishment that they should be together at all. He held her face close to his and wouldn’t let her go, though she made no effort to release herself. Either he was crying or she was — it was to be expected — and he was astounded at how profound was his sense of relief. He thought the words drinking her in even as he was, his mouth so thirsty, so greedy, he could not even take the time to speak to her. There would be hours later when they could talk, he thought, but for now it was simply skin and breasts and long limbs and the awkwardness of needing to pull back to lift a dress overhead or to unbuckle a belt. And it was as though they were again teenagers inside a Buick Skylark convertible. Not needing to be anywhere else. Unable even to conceive of being elsewhere.
The sheets were rough but clean, a thick, textured cotton. He felt lust, but distantly — not as with Regina, when lust was essential to accomplish the act, when lust was necessary to blot out resentment or even fondness. In the canopied bed, there wasn’t room for anything but an exultant sense of love regained and of a finite amount of time reserved to them. And that sense of time increased sensation, increased meaning, so that for an hour, possibly two, the bed, with its rough sheets, was all there was of the known universe.
______
He woke with the sun in his eyes. It was hot inside the room, and the sheets, so newly crisp just an hour earlier, were limp and damp. He moved, causing the top sheet to slide off the bed. He and Linda lay naked, covered only by the thin canopy above them that billowed in the slight breeze. He shifted his face from the direct sun and woke her as he did so. The jasmine petals had been ground into the pillows, and her hair and their perfume mingled with the musk of their bodies. They lay, as he had dreamed them, with her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, a leg curled up and over another. It was a simple posture, accomplished thousands — no, millions — of times a day, and yet so serious he could hardly breathe. He wondered how much time was left to them: an hour, a day, a year? And so he asked her. Determined not to leave before she did, no matter when that was. His body incapable of abandoning her, of walking away.
—I have a day, she said.
—One day.
—A day and a night, actually.
The sense of time so stupefying that he had to repeat the allotment aloud. The sun moved overhead; they hardly moved at all. As if, not moving, time might forget about them altogether. Until thirst compelled her to ask for a glass of water. He pulled on his trousers, reluctant to leave her, and went in search of a water source, encountering Mr. Salim reading at a kitchen table. Thomas explained, in Swahili, what he wanted, and instantly Mr. Salim produced from an icebox that looked to be from the 1930s a pitcher of cold water. The servant, seemingly pleased to have been consulted, added delicate confections of honey and nuts that he didn’t name. Thomas took the tray upstairs, noting the two glasses instead of one.
She might never have drunk before. She sat upright, entirely naked, and he admired her breasts and the shallow curve of her stomach as she tilted her throat. In similar fashion, she devoured her portion of the sweets, which made him laugh, so that he offered her his, which she took with little hesitation.