The Memory of Love (35 page)

‘I swear I bought more. Sometimes the others come in and take them.’

If the candle supply runs out, thinks Adrian, then he will have no option but to leave.

‘Ah good. I’d hidden them. I thought so.’

Adrian exhales.

On a side table there is a photograph. He leans to look at it, Mamakay and two other girls. He recognises one of them as Mary, a slimmer, more youthful Mary.

‘Our invasion uniform,’ says Mamakay. ‘That picture was taken right in the middle of things.’

‘What’s with the jeans?’ he says.

‘We wore jeans under our dresses. There was a time we dressed like that every day, because nobody knew when they were coming. One day the radio would say the rebels had been pushed back to the border, another day people arrived in the city saying they were at Port Loko. We stopped believing the government. We wore blue jeans.’ She pauses and then she gives a short, strange laugh, as if remembering something absurd or possibly painful.

Still he doesn’t understand.

Mamakay turns to look at him. ‘Have you ever tried to get a pair of tight jeans off in a hurry? It was the only thing we could think of to do. To stop them raping us. Well, to make it harder.’

Adrian wants to ask her all about it, everything that happened. He cannot imagine what it was like. The powerlessness. In that respect war was worse for civilians, for at least the fighters were given the opportunity to act. Civilians were like rats in a barrel.

Mamakay picks up the photograph, looks at it for a moment and sets it back down. ‘Sarian’s gone now.’

‘Where to?’

She makes it sound as though she is dead.

‘Holland. They have twenty-four-hour electricity, can you imagine?’

He can, but he doesn’t say so. Instead he asks, ‘Wouldn’t you like to live somewhere else?’ He is thinking of England, perhaps.

‘No.’ She shakes her head.

‘You could do so much more, your music.’

‘I’m happy here. Believe it or not.’

One hour later and one inch of candle left. Adrian gets up to go. Mamakay walks with him to his car. It is pitch dark. His shoes hit the concrete with what seems to him a remarkable amount of noise. She is barefoot and silent. Curled up in the yard, the dogs raise their heads and watch his progress through opalescent eyes. For a moment the moon shines through the clouds and he sees the outline of his vehicle ahead of him. He is not at all sure of the whereabouts of Mamakay. He aims straight for the car, placing his feet with more confidence than he feels, tries to remember the location of steps and plant tubs. A few seconds later he collides with the car, takes a backward step and turns, disorientated. In that moment Mamakay steps into his arms. At the touch of her his erection, over which he has maintained uncertain control all evening, rises unchecked. He steps backwards, hard into the car, and comes to rest with his back against the door. Now he cannot see Mamakay any more. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind. He reaches into the dark for Mamakay.

Morning. He rolls over and places an arm across Mamakay, who is still sleeping by his side; his hand comes to rest upon her breast. He closes his eyes and inhales. One by one whatever thoughts were in his mind drop out of sight. He begins to move against her, feels the energy change in her body as she crosses from sleep into wakefulness, the faint tension that arises in her muscles. She turns around. He moves down her body, feeling the resistance of the sweat-damp sheet, the heat from her. The night before he had done nothing but hold her at first. Now he lingers over every detail of her as they make love. She is relaxed and unhurried, quite without vanity or false modesty, laughing when her body makes an unforeseen sound, quite unlike any woman he has known.

And later she wanders naked, making fresh coffee, rearranging items, bringing things back to bed: a CD cover, a saved newspaper article. She scarcely stops talking and does not offer Adrian a robe, so that he remains trapped until he finally frees himself from his own self-consciousness and the bed. In the night he’d got up to pee and found the bathroom full of plants. Now Mamakay fetches water and they wash each other standing on a bed of white pebbles in a vine-enclosed shower in the yard. The man next door comes out to feed his birds, rice clatters down on the tin roof, the birds squabble over it. Mamakay fries plantains. They eat with their fingers. Adrian burns his tongue. An orange-headed lizard approaches them, with a mixture of caution and inquisitiveness. Mamakay blows on a scrap of plantain and throws it. The lizard darts forward and collects the trophy on its black tongue.

‘Is this where you grew up?’ he asks.

She shakes her head.

‘Where then?’

‘On the campus. Later my father built his own house.’

‘On the campus? Where we were yesterday?’

‘Yes,’ she nods. She is looking at him, frowning lightly, seemingly faintly bemused by his questions. ‘My father taught there. He’s a professor of history.’

And then Adrian realises he has been slow, stupidly slow. That first day leaving the hospital, he’d been in a hurry. He nodded at her and she looked back at him; the glance had stayed with him the whole of the day. She’d been talking to Babagaleh. Babagaleh was Elias Cole’s manservant. At first Adrian had taken Mamakay for another servant. Elias Cole was the reason he had gone to meet her on campus, the reason he’d given himself, background context on a client. He hadn’t allowed himself to think. Of course.

Mamakay is Elias Cole’s daughter.

For a moment Adrian is quiet. Then he tells Mamakay about Lisa.

‘I know,’ says Mamakay.

‘How do you know?’ he asks.

‘Not how,’ she replies, looking at him. ‘Not how, but what. What I know is that you won’t be staying.’ She shrugs. ‘So I suppose the exact reason doesn’t really matter.’

CHAPTER 34

Abass is on the balcony surveying the street when Kai arrives home from his visit to the Embassy. He runs to meet him at the gate.

‘Mum says you’re to make my supper and help me with my homework.’

‘And hello to you, too,’ says Kai.

‘Hello,’ says Abass.

‘Where are your mum and your aunties?’

‘The baby died,’ announces Abass. ‘It’s science homework.’

‘Which baby? The one Yeama was looking after?’

‘Yes,’ confirms Abass. ‘A lady had it and then she died. Now the baby’s dead, too.’

‘That’s sad,’ says Kai. ‘Yeama must be sad. Is her brother back yet?’

Abass stops swinging his arms, he drops his head, his face solemn. ‘I don’t think he is back, Uncle Kai, because I haven’t seen him and I’d know if I did, because he’s a soldier and wears a uniform.’

So the man has lost all his young family without knowing it. They’ll be buried by the time the news reaches him. No telephones, no post, the far reaches of the country are virtually cut off. Somebody will have to carry the message to him. Every day Kai sees women on the wards lying next to their sick children. The women’s listlessness frustrates the foreign doctors, who try to urge them to take better care, to own responsibility for monitoring their child’s vital signs. The local nurses, though, show less surprise. And Kai recognises the expression of the mothers. It is submission, submission in the face of the inevitable. People think war is the worst this country has ever seen: they have no idea what peace is like. The courage it takes simply to endure.

‘We’ll pass by once we’ve done your homework. Offer our condolences.’

‘Offer our condolences,’ repeats Abass, testing each word carefully.

‘Come on,’ says Kai. He catches the child across his chest, holding him tight and resting his chin on the top of his head. He feels bad. Abass was so cheerful a minute ago. ‘Food first. Or homework?’

‘Umm.’

‘Toss for it?’

Kai produces a coin. They toss, and when Abass loses they toss for the best of three. Abass still loses.

‘What’s the homework?’ says Kai.

‘It’s an experiment. I need iodine and something called an eye dropper. Mum says you’ll give me one. Lemons and other things.’

‘Let’s see what we can do,’ says Kai.

In the kitchen Abass stands on a stool at the stove heating cornflour and water in a pan. While they wait for the mixture to boil Kai’s thoughts are occupied with the events of his day.

First thing he had gone into town to the Embassy for an appointment with an immigration liaison officer, who told him his application was being processed and gave him a further set of forms. From there Kai had gone to the telecom offices to call Tejani, but realised he’d forgotten the five-hour time difference. Tejani would be asleep. So he bought a prepaid telephone card and then stopped by the Mary Rose for lunch, the first time he’d seen Mary in many months. As he ate he watched her moving around her restaurant, exchanging good-humoured jibes with her clientele. Mary seemed to have let go of the past. In between serving customers she came to sit with Kai; they talked about the hospital, Mary’s plans for a takeaway and home-delivery service. Kai did not mention his appointment at the Embassy. When he made to leave she’d taken both his hands, her eyes locked on to his, and holding him prisoner thus forced a promise out of him to come again.

After lunch he’d found a quiet place in the park and called Tejani on his mobile. Tejani yelled when Kai gave him the news, then seemed at a loss for words.

‘My man, my man, my man,’ he repeated. Kai heard him call to someone in a back room; Helena, he presumed. And finally, ‘So you’re really going to do it. I’m so pleased.’

‘Good.’ Kai could imagine Tejani standing in his new house in a pair of shorts, silhouetted against the summer sun coming through the sliding doors to the yard, shaking his head in the way he had. Then Kai remembered it was cold still in Maryland and they’d not moved to their new house, or even found the financing yet.

‘You’re going for the H1-B visa, right?’

‘Is that what it’s called?’ said Kai.

‘Yes. Highly skilled migrants. Doctors are top of the league. It’ll be easier if you have a sponsor here, but it isn’t necessary. You’ll have to take the professional exams for your licence. We should get an application in for those right now, you can always defer. Man, I can’t believe this!’

Kai listened to his friend’s voice; there was a faint echo on the line. Believe this. Believe this. He noticed the American inflection that had entered Tejani’s voice, remembered how they’d affected American accents at school, adopted American slang at university. Converse sneakers. Rap.

A sense of having turned a corner into the inevitable entered Kai, bringing with it a chill. ‘It’s not definite yet,’ he said.

A pause. Tejani spoke again. ‘I want you here, man. What can I say? I miss you, man.’ Miss you, man. A static-flecked silence.

In a fresh voice Kai said, ‘You’re right. What am I saying? I’m coming.’

They talked for a quarter-hour more. Tejani made plans, offered advice. Kai told him of the trip back to the waterfall.

‘Did you go through Port Loko?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder how that guy is doing?’

Kai knew immediately who Tejani was talking about. He’d wondered the same himself. Dr Bangura, the Lassa fever specialist.

Tejani continued, ‘Man, I’d love to know what happened to him.’

When the beeps on the line warned Kai’s credit was about to run out, Tejani offered to call back, but Kai said he needed to get back to the hospital. He put the phone in his pocket and for a quarter-hour more remained sitting on the bench, watching the children on their way home from school.

‘I think it’s ready now.’ Abass is staring into the recesses of the saucepan.

‘OK. How much iodine do we need?’ Kai consults Abass’s exercise book, where the instructions for the experiment are written out in spiky, child’s handwriting. ‘It says here we have to add some of your solution to a jug of water first.’ He finds the eye dropper.

‘Let me, let me!’ Abass climbs down from the chair.

‘Where are your fruit and vegetables? Shouldn’t you have them ready?’

‘Oh!’ Distracted now, Abass begins to search randomly around the kitchen.

In time he’s ready. They carry out the experiment to test vitamin C levels in different foods. Abass is mesmerised by his power to alter the colour of the purple liquid by dropping pieces of fruit and vegetables into it. He is still testing as Kai prepares to fry the chicken. He confines the child to one side of the kitchen, allows him a piece of raw chicken skin to drop into his test tube of iodine solution, and later describes for him the symptoms of scurvy, which the child copies down slowly amid much rubbing out and revision. Kai repeats phrases patiently as he coats each piece of chicken and places them into the pan of hot oil.

At eight o’clock his cousin is still not back. ‘Come on,’ he says to Abass. ‘Let’s take something to Yeama.’

He places several pieces of chicken in a plastic container. From his bedroom Kai collects a wad of notes from the store in his chest of drawers. They make their way up the lane and arrive at Yeama’s to find the women sitting in a loose circle, in the middle of which a pair of lamps burn low. Kai gives Abass the chicken to give to Yeama, and presses the money into her hand himself. From the gathered women comes a muttering of approval. Abass stands shyly in front of Yeama.

‘He’s growing up fine, this one.’ She reaches out her hand to stroke Abass’s arm.

Abass doesn’t move, but stands, arms at his sides, his belly sticking out, while he continues to regard her.

‘No father.’ Yeama nods as she says this, as if to confirm the wisdom of her own observation. ‘But he has a good mother.’

There is a general murmuring of consent; Kai hears his cousin’s voice thanking Yeama for the compliment.

Yeama continues, ‘And he has you, too.’ She nods at Kai then gives Abass’s arm a final pat and pushes him gently in Kai’s direction.

Nobody expects them to sit long with the women, and so after a few minutes Kai makes his excuses and leaves. He and Abass walk down the hill towards the house. The boy is silent, keeping pace with Kai in the darkness.

It is coming, Kai knows, one day soon. Every time somebody like Yeama makes a remark it brings the day a little closer. Inside Abass’s head he can sense the child’s brain working, trying to form thoughts out of feeling, thoughts which will in turn give rise to the questions, questions that have yet to crystallise.

One day.

Three o’clock in the morning. Kai listens to Abass’s adenoidal breathing. The child asked to sleep in his bed again. Now he is lying, leg bent, flung out across the middle of the bed. Kai stares into the darkness, then slips out of bed and goes into the yard.

Kai wasn’t woken by dreams about the bridge, or even a dream at all. But a memory, a sudden intrusion of conscious thought upon his world of sleep. The last time he saw Abass’s father, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup, on his way to his station in the east. He made the journey home twice a month. Just as the vehicle had been about to move off he’d jumped down to shake hands with Kai and climbed back in. He was always particular about his beret; Kai watched him adjusting it and readjusting it against the wind as the pickup gathered speed, wearing his habitual expression of peaceable wonder. In another world he would have been happy as a postman or a farmer.

Rebels invaded the town where he was stationed two weeks later. For days his blackened corpse, fused flesh and rubber, lay on a traffic island from where no person dared to retrieve it.

Perhaps, thinks Kai, he should talk to his cousin. Suggest it was time they thought about telling Abass the circumstances behind his father’s death. He ponders the question a few moments. His thoughts move to his cousin, to the Pentecostalists to whom she has given space in the house, the slight distance she keeps even from her own son. Abass craves her, turns to Kai in her absence. It is not Abass she is protecting. But who is Kai to judge her? For he’d never told Nenebah about the bridge. Or of what happened with the young nurse, Balia. He’d hidden those things from Nenebah.

One night, lying beside her in bed, sleepless, knowing she too was awake. He heard her draw a breath as she half turned towards him and placed her hand on his chest. She moved her hand down across his chest, her fingertips brushed his nipples, which tightened instinctively in response. Then her fingers were on his belly, the muscles of which contracted almost painfully beneath her touch. Kai held his breath. He shivered, held on to the tightness of his stomach muscles, diverted all his mental energy towards her hand and felt himself respond supremely to her advance, so that by the time her fingers snagged softly in his pubic hair he was fully erect. Her fingers found his cock and closed around it. He exhaled. For a moment he relaxed. And was lost. He tried to regain control, to re-engage his mind with his body, with her hand. But it was impossible, the images crowded into his mind, jostling for control, squeezing out the present. Even when she replaced her hand with her mouth, all he felt was her tongue working around his limp state. The entirety of him rested curled inside her mouth, an entirely new sensation. It was she who eventually came up, leant over and kissed him on the mouth. Neither of them spoke. She’d tucked herself under his arm and gone to sleep. It was still good enough between them for that.

A month later came Tejani’s announcement of his departure. They’d discussed it many times before, Tejani the determined one from the start. Kai had seen his friend off, punched fists with him and promised to follow. But he had never followed.

Close at hand a dog adds its voice to those of the others. Kai thinks of the day and the journey he now has before him. He does not lack the courage for it. No.

Rather it was the courage to stay that had failed him.