The Last Time They Met

  —It’s been purified, she said, handing it to him.

  He drank the ice-cold water and realized only then the terrible thirst his nerves had produced. How are you? he asked.

  —How am I?

  Having come — having, against all the odds, found her again — he could not now speak. He sought desperately for a reference point.

  —Do you remember anything from the accident? he asked.

  She was silent, perhaps surprised by the question so soon.

  —I have a blank, he said. It begins with seeing the little girl on the tricycle and ends with my nose filling with water. When I couldn’t see you, I felt a sense of panic so terrifying that even now it can make me sweat.

  She smiled and shook her head. You were never any good at small talk.

  She sat at the table, an invitation to join her. He shed his jacket, the sweat drenching him.

  —What happened to your jacket? she asked.

  —It got washed by mistake in the bathtub.

  She gave a small laugh. And for a moment, lit the room with sound. But then the light went out as abruptly as it had come. Is the scar from then? she asked.

  He nodded.

  —It must have been bad, she said.

  —I hardly noticed at the time. I didn’t feel a thing. Didn’t even realize the extent of it until my mother started screaming.

  —I remember the car tumbling, she said, offering him a memory after all. And I thought, This can’t be happening. The window brace, or whatever that piece between the windows is, buckled, and we rolled. I never lost consciousness. I swam out the other side and started shouting. Some boys were ice-fishing nearby. Well, you must know that. They got you out. It can’t have been a minute that you were unconscious. Though you were groggy, and the police put you on a stretcher.

  —I was calling your name.

  —They wrapped me in a blanket and took me away. I had burns on my side. They had to cut my clothes off me at the hospital.

  —Burns?

  —Scrapes. From what, I don’t know. The embankment, I guess.

  —I’m so sorry.

  She took a sip of water, reached back and squeezed her hair, then brought it forward of her shoulder. We did this already, she said.

  —Do you live alone? he asked.

  She hesitated. She wiped her hands on her kanga. Her feet were bare. Callused on the heels. More or less. Peter commutes.

  —Peter is?

  —My husband. He lives in Nairobi.

  Thomas tried to deflect the blow. Is that Peter? he asked. He pointed to the picture.

  —Yes.

  —What’s he do?

  —He’s with the World Bank. He’s here working on a pesticide scheme.

  —You knew him before?

  —I met him here.

  Thomas stood, the better able to process these unwelcome bits of information. He clenched and unclenched his hands. Restless, feeling jumpy.

  —Why the Peace Corps? he asked.

  She took another drink of water. She looked out the window at the incipient storm. I had a friend, she said ambiguously.

  A great waft of scent blew in with a gust, like an announcement of a woman standing in a doorway.

  —It’s not so unusual, is it? she added. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  Her shoulders brown and polished, her arms muscled. He wondered from what.

  —You’re reading Rilke, he said, surveying the low bookcase. He examined the titles and the authors. Jerzy Kosinski. Dan Wakefield. Margaret Drabble. Sylvia Plath. Looking for Mr. Goodbar.

  —I read anything I can get my hands on.

  —I guess so, he said, fingering a copy of Marathon Man.

  —I beg people to send me books. There’s a pitiful library in Njia. In Nairobi, I go to the McMillan Library at the British Council. I’ve been on a Margaret Drabble kick.

  —You teach.

  She nodded.

  —What?

  He picked up a copy of Anne Sexton and flipped through it. He distrusted confessional poetry.

  —A little bit of everything. The curriculum is based on the English system. There are exams the children have to pass. A levels and O levels and so forth. They have to memorize the counties of England. What good that will do them I’ve no idea.

  Thomas laughed.

  —I teach thirty children in a cement room the size of a garage. I use books published in 1954 — giveaways from some village in Britain. They have peculiar English graffiti in them. “Arthur is a wanker,” and so on. What does your wife do?

  Thomas leaned against the wall and rolled his shirtsleeves. The humidity had saturated the room. A crack of thunder startled both of them, though they might have expected it.

  —The storm, she said.

  She stood up and cranked the windows closed, even as the deluge began. The rain came straight down, at no angle, and created a dull roar on the tile roof so that they had to raise their voices. From somewhere outside the house, there was a wild riot of wind chimes.

  —My wife’s father was a missionary in Kenya shortly after World War II, Thomas explained. An Episcopal minister. He’s reverent about the time he spent here, says they were the best years of his life, et cetera, et cetera. Privately, I suspect there’s a woman somewhere in the story.

  —It’s a challenge any daughter might have to take on, Linda said.

  —Regina has a fellowship to study the psychological effects of sub-Saharan diseases on children. What she sees is pretty grim, he said.

  —Your wife must be very brave.

  He felt cautious, discussing Regina. He wished they didn’t have to. About this, very.

  Linda turned her head away and gazed out at the storm. Nothing to see but sheets of rain. When it was over, he knew, white and cream petals would blanket the ground. There was a smell of ozone in the air that he particularly liked: it reminded him of summer afternoons as a boy.

  —You still wear the cross, he said.

  Her fingers automatically touched it. I don’t know why.

  Thomas was momentarily stung. He had, after all, given it to her.

  —God is everywhere in this country, she said. And yet, I hate Him passionately.

  The comment was so startling, Thomas immediately forgot his hurt. The anger with which she’d spoken shocked him. He waited for her to explain.

  —You can’t even look at the rain, at its excess, and not think of God, she said. He’s everywhere you turn. And viciously cruel.

  Even Thomas, whose own belief amounted to nothing, worried for her blasphemy.

  —So much poverty, she said. So much death and disease and heartache. You can blame colonialism, which is what everyone does. Or tribalism, as good a cause as any. But in the end, it’s God who allows it.

  Thomas was impressed with the strength of her belief. To hate so passionately is to value immensely, he said.

  Her cheeks were pinkened with her sudden passion, a frown between her brows. She wasn’t actually beautiful, though he and others had called her so. It was more that she was pretty. Which meant, he supposed, accessible in some undefined way.

  —You see a lot of poverty? he asked.

  She turned to him. They have no shoes, Thomas.

  —The Kenyan elite. They, too, allow it, he said.

  —You mean the Wabenzis? she asked with evident distaste, using the common nickname for Kenyans who owned Mercedes-Benzes. You mean the Africans who come in on foot and leave by jet?

  She fingered her hair. It was drying, even in the humidity. She rose and went into a room he imagined to be the bedroom. She returned with a brush. She sat in an armchair and began to untangle her hair.

  —It’s not our struggle, he said.

  —We borrow it while we’re here.

  —I didn’t want to come to Africa, he said. It was my wife’s idea. I’d just, believe it or not, learned the value of routine. He paused, embarrassed. I write, he said.

  She smiled. Not surprised. What do you
write?

  He turned away. Poetry, he said, trying to make it a throw-away line. As if his entire life did not depend on it. I don’t feel I belong here, he said.

  —It can be a weird, dissonant life, she said.

  —We live in Karen, in relative luxury, when all around us. . . . Well, you know as well as I do what’s all around us.

  She nodded.

  —It’s not what I imagined, he said. All these paradoxes.

  The neckline of her blouse revealed her collarbone. He was reminded of the sweater she had worn on the last day he had seen her. A pale blue sweater with an open collar. Her wool skirt had lain in soft folds around her shins in the car.

  —What did you do after Middlebury? he asked.

  —I went to graduate school in Boston. In between, I taught high school in Newburyport.

  —You were in Boston and Newburyport? All that time? Thomas, incredulous, calculated the distance between Newburyport and Cambridge. An hour at best. Two from Hull.

  He tried to sound casual. You lived alone? You had a roommate?

  —I had a boyfriend for a time.

  He willed himself not to ask about the boyfriend. I used to try to talk to your aunt when I’d see her around. For about six months, I was in Hull after I graduated. She wouldn’t speak to me. Wouldn’t even acknowledge I was standing there.

  —She’s very good at that.

  —I went to grad school trying to evade the draft. Then my number came up and it was a good one, so I dropped out. If you add it all together, there are probably a couple of years I can’t account for very well. I spent a lot of it drifting. I went to Canada for a while. Then to San Francisco. I was pretty heavily into drugs.

  —Which?

  —Dope. LSD. I still smoke dope from time to time.

  She set her hairbrush on an end table. I’ve always been grateful to you, she said. I’m glad you’ve come, because I’ve always wanted to tell you that. I don’t know what would have happened to me . . .

  He let her thought trail off. He did not deny the gratitude. He’d always had a keen sense of how easy it might be to lose oneself.

  —Would you like some food? she asked. Something to eat?

  —Something, he said. Not a meal.

  She went into the kitchen. He spoke to her back as she moved from counter to fridge to counter. You have electricity? he asked.

  —Sometimes.

  The cottage was so dark inside they might have turned a light on.

  —Have you ever eaten giraffe? he asked.

  —No, but I’ve had antelope. And crocodile.

  —Crocodile isn’t so bad. It tastes like chicken.

  She put bread and cheese on a plate. Something that looked like jelly. He had a sudden craving for sugar.

  —I sometimes feel like the wrong person in the right place, he said. His unease was so great, he was grasping at ways to explain. Or vice versa.

  —You’ve always been that way.

  The kanga a second skin knotted at her hip. The cloth moved easily about her calves as she worked.

  —Living here is like watching an endless documentary, he said.

  She laughed.

  —Tell me about Peter, he said.

  She thought a minute. No.

  Thomas was daunted by her refusal, though he admired the loyalty. A loyalty he hadn’t quite been able to manage himself.

  —It’s exhilarating, he said. Talking to you. It must be a form of blood-letting, this desire to pour the soul into another person.

  —You don’t believe in the soul.

  She brought food to the table, gestured for him to sit. He put a generous amount of cheese and jelly on a piece of bread.

  —We have no good word for it, do we?

  —Spirit? she suggested.

  He shook his head. Too religious.

  —Ghost?

  —Too supernatural.

  —Personality?

  —God, no.

  —The word life is too broad, I suppose.

  —I need another fucking thesaurus, Thomas said. Mine was stolen while I was having a beer at the Thorn Tree.

  She laughed. What a funny thing to steal, she said.

  She had made tea. The mention of beer made him want one. I have an overwhelming urge to spill myself messily at your feet, he said.

  Her hands froze as she poured the tea.

  —Sorry, he said. You should ignore the sexual implications of that remark.

  She shrugged.

  —You look wonderful, he added. I should have said that sooner.

  —Thank you.

  —Do men follow you in the streets? he asked.

  She put the teapot down. Kenyan men are normally very respectful of women that way, she said. She paused. The rains had suddenly ceased, as if someone had turned off the faucet. Their voices were now too loud. Wouldn’t your wife have told you this?

  —My wife might want me to think they did, he said without hesitation when he should have hesitated. Linda turned her face to the window. It was the most disloyal thing he’d said about Regina. Doubly disloyal, implying not only that his wife would lie to her advantage, but might also want to make him jealous.

  —I’m sorry, he said. To whom or about what, he wasn’t sure.

  —Do you have children? she asked.

  —No. He paused. Regina was pregnant once, but she miscarried when she was five months along.

  —I’m sorry.

  —It was a hideous miscarriage that ended in the delivery room. It was a week before our wedding.

  He didn’t add that backing out of the marriage would have been unthinkable, though, miserably, the thought had crossed his mind. Since then — fit punishment — Regina had not been able to conceive, a fact that sometimes made her sad and paradoxically maternal. The way she carried on with Kenyan children — any child — was heartbreaking to watch. It had been three years, and it was time to take the tests, but she, who would know, had little faith in Kenyan medicine. She wanted to wait until they got home. Which was fine with him.

  —You don’t have children? he asked.

  —Oh, no.

  No more than he had expected, but he felt relief all the same. I feel like someone just hacked open my chest with a machete, he said.

  —Another scar, she said lightly.

  There was a long silence between them.

  —Rich is coming, he said after a time.

  —Rich? she asked, brightening. How old is he now?

  —Sixteen.

  —Imagine! She shook her head slowly back and forth. What’s he like?

  —He’s a good kid. He likes boats. He works at the yacht club during the summer, ferrying the launch.

  —He was seven when I knew him. Such a sweet boy.

  —Well, maybe if you’re in Nairobi, you’ll come to dinner and meet him.

  The insanity of the dinner invitation was like a boy’s voice breaking in mid-speech.

  —I’m sure he remembers you, Thomas added. Well, I know he does. He still talks about what a good ice-skater you were.

  —It seems like so long ago, she said wistfully.

  —It seems like only yesterday.

  He studied her arm on the table. The hair there was nearly white as well. She seemed to notice his scrutiny, for she withdrew her arm. Perhaps she was still self-conscious about her hands.

  —Tell me about your work, she said.

  He thought a moment. No.

  She looked up and smiled. Touché.

  He knew the work was good. It was a simple fact that never left him. And he knew that one day someone else would see this if only he could be patient. He sometimes marveled at his confidence and wondered where it had come from. And though he seldom talked about it, he never mistrusted it.

  She rose. Would you like to go for a walk? I could show you the school.

  He felt he could have sat in her cottage forever.

  His legs were weak as she led him through the back door. He had expected her to put o
n sandals, but she didn’t, and he noted the toughness of her feet. The path through the bush was narrow, causing them to have to walk single file, making conversation all but impossible. The low grasses, wet from the recent rain, soaked his trouser cuffs, and he stopped for a moment to roll them. They walked through a pale yellow chrysanthemum field and past what appeared to be a small cluster of huts. True huts, with grass roofs, not the sophisticated version with the tin roof and the red vinyl furniture of the Ndegwa shamba. He watched her back, her drying hair. It was chilly after the storm, though the sun was strong, and as they walked through shady patches, they passed from cool to warm to cool again. Occasionally, Linda waved at a woman or a child. He might have noticed the scenery, but he could hardly take his eyes off her. Her walk strong, the cloth of the kanga swaying languidly as she moved. Her hair growing lighter by the minute. They edged a dense forest, and he grew momentarily nervous about encountering another buffalo or an elephant, but she moved without concern, and he chose simply to follow her lead. The forest opened to a village with a dusty duka, a bar, a school — all made of cement. It might have been the Wild West, for its lack of adornment and its isolation.

  He meant to catch up to her as soon as they had left the path, but on the road she was immediately surrounded by children, calling to her, reaching out to touch her. Jambo. Miss Linda. Habari yako? Mzuri sana. She scratched the tops of their heads, bent down to hug them. They spoke to Linda in a rapid patois of Swahili and English, and wanted to know, shyly, the identity of the man with her, pointing at him with one hand and hiding their mouths with the other. She introduced Thomas as a friend, and he shook hands all around, their happiness infectious. But then a boy asked Linda where Peter was, and Thomas felt the happiness drain from his body. They began to walk on, the children like grasshoppers beside them. Thomas wanted to take Linda’s hand, ached to do so. She told him that once the village had been a thriving community, but that most of the men had gone into the city, looking for work. Some came back to their women and children on the weekends; others would never come back at all. Women with babies wrapped in slings at their chests waved at Linda from doorways, the ebullience of the children not in evidence there, the waves friendly but somber: the women knew too much, or their men had left them.

  Heat radiated from the road. Thomas took off his jacket, threw it over his shoulder. His clothes were now as dusty as the dirt and gravel. Linda opened the door to the school, and the children squeezed past them. It was unexpectedly cool inside the building, the walls solid until shoulder height, where, just below the tin roof, there were open windows with no glass.