The Uttermost Parts of the Earth Page 9

  SIX

  Kwame spent his days ordering the center, reading procedure manuals, establishing a system for library books and videos, and devising one for lending items he hoped borrowers would actually return.

  Job seekers began to stand outside the center, hoping he would notice them. At first he greeted these young men, told them about the center, gave them handouts, and insisted he was not yet ready to hire a librarian. They continued to loiter outside. Waiting for Kwame to hire them seemed their only occupation. He stopped distributing handouts.

  Girls, ostensible job seekers, also came to the center. A few actually seemed interested in books. From the manner of most, the way they hung around talking to Anatole’s wife and playing with her children, the longing looks they threw him and some of their gestures, Kwame realized that news of Mason’s interest in teenage girls had circulated in town.

  Occasionally he went to the Badekas’ Bomboko Congo School. He showed the students movies about world affairs. He began to team-teach African literature with Théa. These sessions were the highlight of his days; they gave him great pleasure. Now and then he taught classes by himself. On these occasions he enjoyed challenging students. “Why do you come to school?” he would ask them.

  “To learn,” they would say in an almost sing-song unison.

  “To learn what?” he would ask.

  That would cause the students to pause. Didn’t he know what they came to learn? Occasionally one of the braver students would suggest, “mathematics.” Or “history.” Or “language.”

  “You come to learn to think,” Kwame would say. “To THINK!” This idea surprised the students. “What does it mean to think?” Kwame would ask. “It means to wonder about everything, including what people tell you.” The students would fall silent. What did he mean?

  Kwame would point through the open windows to the sunlight making the leaves of the banana trees intensely green. He would say, “Those leaves are certainly red.” Students would gaze at the leaves. Kwame would say, “If you are a thinker, first you look outside at the leaves. If I say, ‘Those leaves are certainly red, aren’t they?’ what do you do?”

  Silence would fall across the students. Some giggled. Others stared at their desks, embarrassed by his ignorance. “If I say that, what do you say? Do you say, ‘Yes, Teacher. Those leaves are certainly red’?” Kwame looked about the class. The students had been raised not to contradict their elders. “You may not want to say, ‘No, you’re wrong. Those leaves are green.’ But you want to think it. Do you understand?” Kwame examined the faces of his students. Some nodded slightly in agreement. Others frowned. “If I say, ‘Look how hard it’s raining outside.’ What do you think?”

  Silence. The students looked out the window at the sunlight on the banana leaves. “Kabenga, if I say that to you, what do you say?” Kabenga smiled and shook his head. He looked down at his desk. Kwame looked again through the windows. “If I say, ‘Look at the rain out there! I’m glad I brought my umbrella!’ what do you think? Bileke, what do you think?”

  Finally Bileke replied very quietly, “I do not see it raining, Teacher.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Kwame. “Excellent! Because it’s not raining, is it?” He grinned at the students. They seemed relieved to be assured that, in fact, it was not raining. “Now here’s something more complicated. If I say to you, ‘Colonialism is the best way to develop this country.’ What do you think?” The question puzzled the students. “Or if I say, ‘Capitalism is the best way.’ Or if I say, ‘Communism is the best way.’ Or if I say, ‘A one-party government is the best way.’ What do you think?” The students stared at him with wide eyes. “There were people in your country fifty years ago who insisted, ‘Colonialism is the best way to develop this country.’ Was it true?”

  Some of the students shook their heads.

  “Why was it not true?” Kwame asked. “Because the colonials took your wealth and put it in their banks. Because colonials said, ‘People with black skins are savages. They are stupid.’ Is that true?” Kwame asked. Before the students could digest the question, he exclaimed, “No! It is not true! I have a black skin. Am I a savage? No! Am I stupid? Only if I agree with what they tell me. If someone says to you, ‘This is the best way to develop your country.’ Or that way is. Then you have to ask yourselves: Is what he’s telling me really true?”

  Kwame would grin at the students, realizing they needed time to think about what he said. While they did, he would move to the academic material he intended to teach.

  Kwame loved to watch his students’ faces, their expressions generally eager, their eyes sometimes skeptical or amused, baffled or intent. He loved holding the students’ attention in his palm, leading them to wider visions of themselves and their world. He loved their coming to the library. He loved seeing them on the streets of the town when some would behold him with awe, too shy to speak, and others, the bold ones, would crow, “Hello, Teacher!” They would jump with jubilation when he returned their greeting.

  IF HE found the teaching fulfilling, when he returned to the center, it was often with a sense of frustration. Everything seemed to take forever. So much of the time he worked alone. He often felt lonely. He looked each day for letters from Livie, but none came. He continued to write her.

  One afternoon the Peugeot sedan he had seen his first day at the airport parked before the center. Mme Berton left the car, climbed the three steps to the entry porch, and knocked coquettishly on the panes in the door. “Entrez, Madame! Entrez!” Kwame greeted her.

  “Eng-leesh, please, sir,” she requested. “I am determine to ameliorate my Eng-leesh.”

  She had come, she claimed, to see the library. She moved around the room theatrically, the jacket of her pantsuit flaring at her slim waist. She enthused about Kwame’s progress and studied the books on his shelves. “With mon ami Mason,” she said, “we deescuss book. Also news. Rwanda, zee terrible massacre there. Mon Dieu, how horrible! What happen there now? I do not get news. Never.”

  Madame floated into Kwame’s office. He apologized that he could not offer her refreshment; he was still getting organized, he explained. “My husband, he iss away at zee plantation. And me, I need someseeng to read.” Her glance fell on a dozen paperbacks Kwame had brought with him, novels by African writers, volumes he might lend to special library patrons. “What zees?” Madame asked. She examined the titles.

  Kwame showed her his copy of Things Fall Apart. “You might like this,” he said. “The novel about Africa everyone should read. Beautifully, but very simply written. You could read this without a French-English dictionary.”

  She smiled and took the book. “I read. We talk.” She cocked her head beguilingly at Kwame. Her perfume wafted about him. She looked him over. Found him attractive. Kwame felt flattered. Sexual opportunity vibrated in the room. Mbandaka was a place where affairs relieved boredom. “Tomorrow night?” Madame suggested. “You come to dinner? I read all day.”

  The prospect of European food tempted him, but Kwame sensed trouble.

  “You busy?” Madame asked. She giggled because no one was ever busy in the evenings in Mbandaka.

  “Let’s do this as a class,” Kwame suggested. “When you finish the book, we’ll talk about it in the library. The center’s first cultural event.” Madame made a pout. Kwame smiled and shook his head. “Here in the center. Invite your husband.”

  IN THE late afternoons Kwame returned to his hotel room, worn down by the heat. In Cape Town he had rarely had cocktails with Livie when he returned from the office, but by day’s end in Mbandaka he wanted a drink. He looked forward to chatting in French, to the companionship of mankala, watching the sunset and the fishermen bathing.

  “You tried the local weed?” Moulaert asked one afternoon. He and Odejimi were smoking. A dark layer of cloud was building across the river, promising rain.

  “Smoking’s bad for you,” Odejimi said.

  “What isn’t bad for you?” Moulaert asked. He sat with his
broad safari hat protecting his face. “Mama said smoking bad. Also sex. Papa said drinking bad. Also dope. Also Africa!”

  “Africa’s the worst,” said Odejimi. Madame Van smiled her silent, enigmatic smile. Kwame wondered what she was thinking.

  “Whanging off very bad,” Moulaert continued. “So the priests said; they should know. Unnatural. Jig-jig? Natural, but also bad.” He winked at Madame Van. “Erotic quest by married man. Verrrry baaaad. But it doesn’t hurt me any.” He guffawed. “I like smoking this stuff,” Moulaert went on. “It makes everything mellow.”

  Odejimi offered a joint to Kwame. “You’re trying to send me straight to hell, aren’t you?” Kwame asked.

  “How else can you be happy in Jungleville?” Odejimi inquired. “We don’t want you to go crazy and run off into the bush.”

  Moulaert leaned forward and lightly touched Madame Van’s knee. “Come to my room, eh, Madame?” he begged. “Je t’en prie.” He fell to his knees and implored her as if in prayer. The men laughed at this buffoonery. Madame Van paid no attention. Avoiding Moulaert’s eyes, she began to prepare the mankala board. “I will give you a present,” Moulaert implored.

  “The bite of a white snake,” said Odejimi, laughing heartily.

  Madame Van’s eyes narrowed. She did not look at Moulaert.

  Blushing at the rebuff, Moulaert stood and flicked his cigarette off the terrace. “Her Flemish husband abandons her,” he complained. “And because I’m his fellow countryman, she takes her revenge on me.” Moulaert moved off toward the reception.

  Madame Van observed, “A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.” Kwame thought: a proverb. To what did it refer, he wondered, to her refusal to go off with Moulaert? That was the thing about proverbs. You were never certain. In a moment or two Moulaert crossed the terrace; La Petite trailed behind him. Hmm. Did the proverb refer to that?

  They watched the couple move toward the stairway. Moulaert placed his hand on the girl’s behind.

  “Il est dégoûtant,” remarked Madame Van. (He’s disgusting.) She gazed at the clouds over the river. Her eyes drifted to Kwame. Her weightless glance caused a stir in him. He smiled slightly. She smiled back. Odejimi caught this exchange.

  “She loves your being a WASP with a black skin,” he teased in English.

  Kwame flicked his eyebrows.

  “She would like to be your friend,” he continued. As if by letting her be his friend he would join their family of pals. Odejimi was offering him membership. He remarked, “A man cannot eat celibacy and stay alive.”

  More proverbs, thought Kwame. He shrugged.

  “Maybe some places,” said Odejimi. “But not in Mbandaka.”

  Kwame glanced at Madame Van. He wondered how much she understood of the English he and the doctor were batting back and forth. Perhaps she wasn’t even listening. Kwame felt her eyes lift off his skin. She looked back at the clouds.

  “She doesn’t want to be everyone’s friend,” Odejimi continued. “You saw with Moulaert.”

  If he did not join the family, Kwame wondered, would he become, like Moulaert, a kind of outcast, depending on La Petite for friendship?

  “The whiskey holding up?” Odejimi asked, switching to French.

  “Yes, thank you.” Kwame poured a mere splash of it and some soda into a glass every night and raised that glass to the photo of Livie. “I have a taste before bed.”

  “A good friend, whiskey.” Odejimi turned to Madame Van and suggested, “Roll our friend a cigarette.” Then to Kwame in English: “It’ll make you feel mellow, old boy.” Madame Van took tobacco from Odejimi’s pouch and shook a line of it into a cigarette paper. The doctor said, “Madame wonders if you are circumcised.”

  Kwame laughed with surprise. “I know why Mason disappeared,” he said. “To stop listening to you.” He knew he should go inside. But he did not want to sit alone in his room.

  He watched Madame Van prepare the cigarette. She was really quite beautiful. Maybe twenty-three, no older. Her skin was like silk, like a flowing, liquid chocolate. Whenever she moved, her shoulders were held level, her back erect. Her posture displayed a straightness borne of loads carried on her head since early childhood. She had a classic African face: broad forehead, prominent cheekbones, the features not delicate, but strong. Her nose was slightly flattened. Below it were a well-modeled chin and mouth with lips that were sometimes poignant, often open in laughter and showing teeth that were even and brilliantly white. She had expressive eyes. They communicated her moods without ever betraying her essence; they did not disclose her mystery. Her mystery intrigued him. It made him feel hungry for a woman.

  When Madame gave Kwame the cigarette, their eyes met. They touched. Kwame felt a tiny electric shock. Madame smiled. She struck a wooden match and lit the cigarette. Kwame inhaled and let the smoke move into his head and lungs. And, yes, he did feel suddenly mellow.

  THE RAIN came at nightfall. From the balcony of his room Kwame saw huge flashes of lightning throw gray-white light across the endless expanse of sky. Cool winds rose. The river grew dark. The winds pushed clumps of water hyacinths in toward shore. Dogs barked. Birds circled in the pre-rain winds. Lightning revealed heavy clouds far across the river. Thunder cracked so close that Kwame shuddered. He smelled the fresh, wet air surge toward him, saw the first raindrops stipple the water and heard their delicate patter on the roof. Then with a crack of thunder the patter became a pounding. Torrents beat on the building. Gusts of wind blew the rain in patterns. It fell heavily, persistently, with an occasional rushing energy that made the roof shake. Outside on the street coconut palms bowed against the wind and flailed their fronds.

  By two A.M. the rain had fallen for eight hours. Kwame could not sleep. He wished he had another of the cigarettes Madame Van had rolled for him. He set the photo of Livie before him. He stared at her image for long moments and tried to talk to her. But the words did not come. What came was a mosquito. Kwame heard its buzz and slapped it into oblivion on his shoulder.

  He’d been drinking off and on all evening. Now he splashed two fingers of Odejimi’s whiskey into the bottom of his glass. He added soda water and stirred the mix with his finger. Wearing only boxers he went out onto the balcony. He stared at the wall of rain and the river beyond it. The drumming of the rain was like a curtain of sound surrounding him. Beyond it he heard music. It came from Odejimi’s room, Kinshasa rock ’n’ roll. Rain droplets beaded the hairs on his arms and chest.

  The door to Odejimi’s room opened. Madame Van rushed out, giggling, on a blast of sound. She was dancing in the rain, her body swaying, her arms outstretched, her hands gyrating on her wrists, the fingers rolling enticingly. She was naked. She saw Kwame and stopped giggling, stopped dancing. She moved to cover herself, but the music captured her. She began to dance again, her hands waving to him on her wrists. She did nothing to hide her nakedness. She stood erect, moving her weight from foot to foot. She lifted her arms above her head, her breasts rising, and smiled at him. “Bonsoir, Monsieur,” she said. “Quelle pluie, hunh?” (What rain!)

  They stared at one another. Then an amorous Odejimi ran onto the balcony. Madame continued to dance. Also naked, Odejimi flicked a towel at her rump. When he saw Kwame, he grinned and flicked the towel at him.

  Kwame raised his glass. “Good whiskey you gave me.”

  “When the rain falls, the frogs dance,” said Odejimi. “Join us.”

  In his tipsiness Kwame felt African. Why not join the family, he thought. Why not have a go at Madame Van? She cocked her hips, shifted her weight from side to side in time to the music, kept her arms raised above her head, lifting her breasts. She flung a hip provocatively. Kwame laughed; they were all laughing. He raised his glass again. “One vice at a time,” he said.

  Madame Van gazed at Kwame, laughing, still dancing, and Kwame could not take his eyes off her. “When the moon shines,” she said in French, “the cripple becomes hungry to dance.” Kwame nodded, moving toward her into the rain. Yes,
he was hungry. Odejimi jumped onto Kwame’s balcony and danced beside him. He grabbed Kwame’s boxers and pulled them to the floor.

  Odejimi really wanted to be friends, Kwame thought. He glanced at the doctor’s nakedness. He shrugged. So be it.

  Kwame undulated his hips as the rain hit his skin, feeling himself grow erect. Odejimi pointed at his groin. Kwame danced. Draining his glass, laughing, he waggled his hips, waved his flag. Madame Van inspected him. Her laughter transformed into impish interest. She saw that of the two men he was much better hung, at least for the moment. “Elephant!” she cried. She pointed at him, applauded what he displayed.

  The rain fell harder. Odejimi returned to his room. Dancing, Kwame and Madame Van drew closer together. Laughing, she touched him. A caress in the rain. An invitation. He lifted her off her feet. He took her across the porch, pushed her against a wall. She coiled her legs about him. He entered her. Their hips moving, they clasped each other so tightly they could hardly breathe. They exploded, held on. And on. The rain pounded down on them. Finally they kissed, their mouths open, their tongues joined as their bodies were. Kwame felt himself swelling once more. He had not withdrawn, and moved inside her again. They clutched each other, panting, swooning.

  Oh, how I needed this, Kwame thought. Livie, Livie, please understand. I really needed this.

  Across a great distance he heard the flicking of a towel. Odejimi was back. Madame Van slid away. Odejimi led her off. Kwame stood in the rain, eyes closed, a grin on his face.

  HE SLEPT soundly, his body refreshed by its exercise. Waking, he saw the photo of Livie looking down on him. Oh, how I needed that, Kwame told the photo. Livie, Livie, please understand. I really needed it. It won’t—He turned away from her. Happen again.

  He rose, put on boxers, and went out onto his balcony. He stepped into pools of rainwater that had not drained away. The sky was clear and brilliantly blue, the air fresh. He talked in his head to Livie, trying to explain himself. On Cape Cod they had talked about being apart, but not about how they would deal with it. “What’re we going to do about this?” he had asked her. They had made love and were lying together on their bed. “We’ve been doing a lot of this.”