Chapter 1
Daniel laid on a cot in a corner of the apartment. The sunlight steaming into the room burnished the wood of the old dresser and two rickety chairs. He unbuttoned his shirt and the breeze flirted across the damp sweat of his chest. He rolled a blunt and probed the tightness of the rolled paper with his fingertips. He examined it thoughtfully before lighting. He inhaled the pungent smell and the harsher taste of burning paper.
He sank back onto the cot, contemplated his sinewy forearm and narrow wrist, heard the slow melody of Esso’s hum, and beyond that, the dull crash of waves breaking. If he closed his eyes the moment of being would not end, just bone and skin, sand, the hours marked by the slow progress of a trail of sweat. When even Esso’s house, a clapboard structure along the beach, did not relieve the malaise, he went upcountry, to the villages, driving a truck precariously along rutted road. He missed the villages, the intensity of the light, and how the days were hard, and sparse, and beautiful.
He leaned forward for another hit. Move forward and it was easy to discard memory. A haze of marijuana. A glass of whiskey at a village bar along a dusty road. In a different place, how easily things were left behind. America, the turkey on the solid length of the dining room table, the quietness of his mother’s living room, was a world away from here, from the heat drifting through a house after the electricity had gone out and the odor of grilling fish in a village market. Or from Cote d’Ivoire, where the rebels’ arms were too thin for the guns they carried.
And then he was blinking, and the afternoon sun had turned into evening and Esso was standing, grinning. Esso placed a handful of packets into a bag, his hands practiced and sure.
“Two extra, a cadeau,” he said.
Daniel washed his face in a bucket of water. He looked in the rusted mirror hanging from a nail. With a slender comb he put every fine hair in place, parting it along the crease of his head. He was shaved and tan, handsome even. He slipped the bag into his trouser pocket and checked that it did not make a noticeable bulge.
At the sunset bar, with the third-floor patio above the beach road, Daniel bought a whiskey and took in the view. Palm trees wafted along the road. The bar was just high enough to avoid the waft of petrol oil, sewers, and the calls of mamas on the sidewalks selling fried plantains. Stretching along the horizon, rising with the swell, was a string of cargo ships waiting to unload in port. He knew drivers parked at the port in snaking lines, the loud, self-appointed kings of the West African highway, of trucks of makeshift parts, held by village mechanics and miracles, carried their cargo up-country. He wore a light blue blazer, a white shirt with no tie, and patent leather shoes. He was neat and trim and mellow, the lingering scent of weed and whiskey disguised by aftershave.
Beneath the languid trance of the drugs, Daniel’s mind turned back to his meeting with the ambassador earlier that afternoon. He allowed himself a small smile. Tomorrow he would be traveling upcountry again, leaving the city behind.
The ambassador’s office was the largest one in the embassy, offering views of trees and rooftops of the surrounding neighborhood. The ambassador reclined in his swivel chair. He wore Italian loafers and enjoyed expensive wines, but Daniel respected the ambassador as an old African hand, who knew countless village chiefs and local government officials across West Africa. The ambassador's voice was soft but stern. He splayed five glossy photographs across the desktop. Daniel joined the ambassador behind his desk and took them in. Each photography showed an irrigation ditch along a road from a different angle. At the bottom of the ditch were two bundles. Corpses. The bodies of two men, one older and fatter, the other young. Both wore the uniforms of gendarmes, the country's national police. Their hands had been tied behind their backs, their mouths gagged with cloth. The faces bulged, waxen and frozen in panic.
"They were found in a small village outside of Dapaong," said the ambassador.
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Two dead policemen?"
"I had to get these photographs from a source. The President is trying to cover this up. There are rumors floating around the capital already. Some say this village practiced village justice, they killed two corrupt police officers. Of course, with the elections coming up, others say its a political statement."
"Its quite a statement," said Daniel.
"You're going to tell me which it is." Daniel had left, packed his bag, and bought bus ticket for the next morning.
That had been six hours ago. Now, alone in the back corner, Daniel savored the moment after the second drink, when the pieces fell into focus. Turning, he surveyed the rooftop bar, where the few ex-pats, European professionals, and locals who had been educated abroad came and gathered around small tables to talk, to drink, and to flirt. A European pop song began playing and a German and two French women danced in a trance.
Amid the din he heard his colleague mention his name. “Don’t worry, Daniel Abbott is going with you. That man knows this fucking country, knows every village chief between here and Mali,” said Chavez. “He knows the greetings, eats with them. Ate dog even.” His colleagues, Roger and Chavez, sat on couches at a low table. A whiskey bottle, half full, was between them and the glasses clinked with ice. As embassy staff, they wore suits that would not be out of place in Paris or Washington D.C., but the collars were loosened and the sleeves were rolled up. Koffi, the bar manager, was at his side, dressed in a colorful cotton shirt.
“Can I get you a drink, mon ami?” asked Koffi.
“Who is that man over there?”
“An assistant minister of agriculture. Later tonight he is going to the Palm Hotel. It’s your countrymen that are the problem.
Koffi’s white teeth shined. He was always big and neatly dressed and, when he spotted Daniel in the club, said a small word under his breath. The bits of information were currency and Koffi knew how the game was plaid amid the backwater, the dark shadows along the sandy streets of this capital. Power resided in unexpected places, the photographers of Presidents were ears and eyes, in a country where power governed by fear, everyone wanted to know their place. Beneath the layer of alcohol and weed, Daniel’s mind whirred and he stored the information away. Daniel was an expert at the collection of human intelligence because he gained the trust of tribal leaders, businessmen, and local government officials and they confided in him, often at great risk to themselves. Men like Koffi. Koffi had been manager at the sunset bar for years.
“The French drink their wine, the Germans, their beer. Last Thursday, your marines came in here.”
“You knew they were marines?”
“Not all blancs look the same to me. They are big kids who have seen too much.”
“I’ll talk to their captain.”
“And your new friend, Roger, is drinking too much.”
There was a clash of breaking glass, a flight of champagne flutes broke on the floor. Koffi swung into efficient action. He dried the minister’s double-breasted suit jacket. Another arm propelled the cocktail waitress away behind the bar and then a whistle and motion summoned a busboy with towels, a broom and dustpan.
The night turned hazy from the drink and European club music beat in the background. At the table with his colleagues, Roger had shrugged off his suit jacket. He had a wide body, like that of a weightlifter who no longer trained, and his face, clean, shaven, gave him the air of a small boy. His cheeks were blotched with red. When he talked, Roger shifted his weight forward, his thick fingers pressing the table as he spoke.
“We used to sit next to the Danube, just up the street from St. Stephen’s Basilica. You could go to the Szechenyi Baths to play chess and soak in the waters.”
Chavez, the security officer, nodded warily to Daniel.
West Africa got into one’s blood like the mosquitoes imparting malaria through veins. It had become a part of Daniel’s world, a shade in his brain, a phantom behind every thought. The new ones, they came and either lived in fear of the place or fell in love with it. Roger complained about it. He asked for more razor wire to be mounted on his compound wall and seemed to scrunch his body closer together, as if trying to appear less large and white. He was a transfer from the “other” Foreign Service serving an obligatory hardship post and talked about the European postings he longed to return to. At first, Daniel and Chavez had endured his conversation with gritted teeth. Six months later, Daniel cast his eye about the bar for an escape, wondering if there wasn’t a better way to spend his evening.
“Here, Lyla needs an entire morning to find coffee filters.” Roger paused, expecting them to share his outrage.
There was the impulse, common to Foreign Service officers new to Africa, to find familiar brands. Wives became expert scroungers, comparing notes about the Lebanese stores and tips for local substitutes. In the quiet aisles of the few supermarches they eyed sparse shelves in the chance more items had miraculously appeared since their last circuit.
“We can’t all stick it out like Daniel here,” said Chavez.
Over the din Daniel ordered a drink. The three blunts from earlier swayed his head. He felt still in his clean shirt and polished lines, more attentive to the hum in his chest; noted the absence of mosquitoes buzzing this high above the sea levels.
“I heard your name before I came here,” said Roger.
Daniel noted the sweet tint of honey in the glass of Hennessey.
“Daniel Abbott. Something about the civil war in Cote d’Ivore and you saved the day, negotiating with rebels.”
“Nothing like that,” said Daniel.
Chavez snorted. “He’s being modest. I’ve heard the story. Muslim rebels in the north were threatening to go back to civil war. Daniel located the former President in the north and walked into a rebel camp armed with a satellite phone.”
Daniel pursued his lips. “If we hadn’t fucked it up in the beginning,” he said quietly. There were surprised looks. “I’ll have to tell it another time.” He went to the bar.
He ordered a scotch over the din. The woman next to him had a blue dress, bare arms, her brown hair cut short above her shoulders. She was American.
“Aid-worker?” He asked.
“Yes.” A smile. She had colgate teeth. “How did you know?”
“No new arrivals in the diplomatic community. The Germans only have one or two engineers here. You don’t look French. You’re drinking whiskey. American aid worker.”
“Alice Lawrence, Aid in Action.”
“Daniel Abbott, I’m with the embassy. What affliction do you eradicate?’ He asked. “AIDS? That’s perhaps where the most money is. Illiteracy? Water-borne diseases? Polygamy?”
“Cynical are we?” She mocked.
“How long have you been here?”
“A week.” He could have guessed that. She reminded him of suburbs and college quads, without the tan lines or holier than thou stare that characterized aid workers. She talked about college in New York. She spoke quietly, in a voice made raspy from cigarettes and with a bemused smile. Daniel pictured her smoking cigarettes on a fire escape in Brooklyn.
“Do you know what the French say? L’Afrique, c’est comment ca.”
“Africa is like that. What does that mean?” A curse and a recognition, the words conveyed potholes, bribes, bureaucratic delays, malaria and broken cars.
“The country is shit. The government is corrupt, and the people are too beaten to do anything about it.”
“Isn’t that an arrogant thing to say? How can you judge a whole people?”
She said it without a hint of meanness and took a drag on a cigarette. Daniel felt warm from the scotch and her attention. The sun had aged him. Tonight, she had glanced at him. Perched on the bar stool, her eyes were bright, her hair was soft. She talked about the flight over and stepping off the airplane for the first time and how proud she was to be in the field.
“I’m going to Tanjare for a month. Tell me about the villages.” She said it so earnestly that he almost liked her for that.
“A poor village. A muslim village, a day north of here.”
He envied her when he thought of her trip up country- the anticipation of the road curving the mountainside and the next view of the forest. The huts had conical straw roofs crowning clay walls, cornfields stretched over hills, and young boys on hill tops smacked the flanks of their cattle with sticks. There were things he didn’t tell her. Young mothers died on clinic beds without medication. During the funeral season, thousands traveled the country to celebrate death at home.
“This country is shit,” he looked up, but she wasn’t startled. Her eyes were quietly laughing. “But things matter here. Life is cheap. The kids are lucky if they live to five. Life is cheap, but its honest. There’s nothing to distract someone. They are born and die in a village. Americans just wander in.’
’You look beautiful.”
Alice smiled. “A non sequitur. I need to go. But…” and the hesitation was potent with unvoiced words. “I want to see you again.” She wrote her number with a blue pen on a cocktail napkin.
When Daniel left, he walked home in the thrall of the whiskey and a quiet glow. In the night, her blue eyes, her lightness, her laugh stayed with him. Outside, the street looked so foreign from Cleveland. He walked home down side streets of sand, past tall, graceful houses, built by the French in the forties, catching a breeze behind a compound wall. He imagined America - looked back at her bright lights and supermarket aisles- a Warhol mosaic of cereal boxes, soup cans, and gallons of ice cream stretched across a continent. In the villages nothing distracted him. He watched his government maneuver in foreign fields.
He turned down the dirt road that led to his own neighborhood. Around him the rebar sticking from the half-completed buildings lent a skeletal appearance, like the entire neighborhood was being stripped to the bone. Locals built whenever they had money, so a building could stay half-built for years. Men and women laid on sidewalks, slept half naked on mats, searching to escape the oppressive heat in the tin-roofed rooms. On the corner women sold ears of corn grilled over charcoal braziers.
Daniel was the only employee from the embassy that lived here. He could have afforded a proper house if he had wanted, in a nicer quartier, like the one where all of the Europeans and his embassy colleagues lived. But they lived walled off from the heat and noise of the city. He had wanted an African street, where the residents knew him.
On either side of the road people gathered and knew him and some called out to him. The people on either side of the street knew him; the shop women, the beggars, knew him. So did the young men who sold their muscles, spending their days- they too lived in small rooms filled with the scent of cooking fires, chamber pots, tattered copies of newspapers, where clothes hung from ropes, and bodies lay down naked in the darkness.
In his small apartment, the living room, the coach, television, and coffee table, looked like a small corner of America. She was waiting on the couch for him. She looked at him for a moment when he entered, her face upturned, her eyes fierce with anger, before she glanced away. The room was covered with pictures they had selected and tacked to the walls. She had torn pictures from old magazines, women in short skirts and long flowing dresses stared at the camera without smiles but with shapely, glittering tops and foreign cityscapes. He had bought simple paintings in the market, of farmers tending fields amid yellow dust and dark skin. Looking at the walls, one was traveling on a journey either overseas or returning to a village. The air still carried the smell of peppers, peanuts, and fried plantains from the cooking hours earlier. Her skin was moist with perspiration in the humid air.
“Can you pass me the piece?” Daniel asked. They spoke in French because his French was better than her English. Pidgin English she had mastered, but American English sentence structure still escaped her. Some words, though she knew.
She folded her legs, long and brown, under her. Her eyes still glared.
“I was at the sunset bar.” Daniel said.
Kristina passed him a piece from the end table. It was a pipe of blown glass. Daniel removed the bag he had bought from Esso and packed the bowl. The weed was dry and with no scent. But it was cheap. He took out his lighter. He inhaled, and felt his thoughts grow cloudy, and the rising sensation in his head. He imagined those legs, long like young trees, wrapping around him, rooting him down. In the past, they would have wanted each other.
“I cooked for you,” she said.
“Natteri-mui, co-um,” he recited the dishes’ names in her local language.
“Groundnut sauce, plantains,” she recited back to him in English.
“Do you want to get high?”
He took the package from Esso and unrolled it on the table, laying the opioids out, practiced and methodical, lining the pills up square with the edge of the paper. Taking the base of a chess piece, he ground the white spheres into powder. Like grinding peppers, he had explained to her, the first time.
She bent down to snort, and leaned back, letting out a low moan. Daniel leaned down, snorted, and felt the sharp, intense rush, through his nostril, bore into his head.
“Why do you consume drugs in your country?”
“It’s our own gri-gri. We need our medicine, our goodluck.” said Daniel.
“Did you meet a white woman tonight?”
“Could she fuck you as good as me? What did your mother say? Never bring home an African.”
Each word landed like a blow. He imagined the ranch style house in Cleveland, his mother chopping vegetables, the picture of the pope nailed over the sink.
Her eyes, fierce and urgent, were a contrast from the early days, when she drank the cold beer in the bar with him and took his cash every morning but passed him in the street like a stranger.
“I had a drink, I talked to Chavez and Roger.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Yes.” He felt the tension in her release. Her presence was solid and firm, her thigh against him.
Daniel dreamed. He tranced the languorous curve of her spine, the flat small of her back. She swept a compound in a cotton skirt. He held her. A machete and sandals were leaned against the mud wall of a hut waiting for a day’s work, outside the cornfields stretched away and the rooster crowed.
The rooster’s crow was piercing, and Daniel laid naked on the mattress, blinking in the morning light, trying to remember the night before- the pot, the whiskey, the pills. Kristina was naked beside him. His clothes were piled on the floor beside the bed - the patent leather shoes, pants, a white shirt and a light blazer. He turned on the coffee maker, swilled mouthwash. Searching for his key in his trouser pocket, he found a crumpled cocktail napkin.
