“How have you been doing?” she asks.
“I’ve been doing very well, thank you.”
Bella squirms. She flags down the waiter. Ngulu orders another whiskey with ice, and then the waiter turns to her.
“What about you, madam? What can I get you?”
She says, “I have had a long day, and a longer night is waiting for me. Please get me a bottle of mineral water with a slice of lemon.”
When the waiter leaves, Ngulu takes the hand closest to him and, with a smile in his eyes, says, “Good. A very long night, I like it.”
She doesn’t even bother trying to set him straight.
He says, “My sincere condolences for your loss. Often, I ask myself what this world is coming to. Innocent people getting killed when they are just going about their business and working for an honest living.” He shakes his head and tells her about some of the casualties they’ve suffered in Nairobi at the hands of terrorists acting in the supposed name of religion, nationalism, or ethnic loyalty.
“And did you lose any friends or family in one of those incidents?” she asks.
He shakes his head, but says, “We’re all affected by it, every one of us.”
She knows that a million and a half Kenyans lost their lives in such violence around the elections a couple of years ago, and close to three million joined the ranks of the internally displaced. But she is in no mood to hear her specific, personal loss glibly lumped in with so many others. Granted, she agrees that in a general sort of way we are all affected at least momentarily by the footage of a bomb blast and the grisly carnage that results. But that is no different from coming across the collision of two vehicles in which passengers have died or been injured. We drive with extra caution for another kilometer or two then return to our habitual careless ways. Only when we are affected personally, when a family member or close friend loses his or her life, do we really feel the pain and cruelty in our guts, in the marrow of our bones. That is why in Somalia people pray that God spares those one loves while taking those one does not even know.
The waiter brings their drinks and then tots up their bill, scribbling the total and leaving it on the table.
“How are Aar’s children faring?” Ngulu asks.
“They’re having a difficult time,” Bella says.
“They go to school here, right? In the suburbs?”
Bella is not inclined to give him any more information than she needs to. She senses that their relationship is dying a natural death, although she is not sure this is the right moment to end it definitively. She will bide her time. What is the rush?
Ngulu asks, “Have you a plan for this evening?”
“I am planning for a very long night.”
“With me, I hope.”
“And what do you have in mind?”
He brings out a room key. “This is the plan I have in mind. I’ve paid for a suite for the night where I hope we will frolic and love and remember.”
Bella’s gaze shifts from the room key he has shown her to the mineral water, which she has not even touched. She weighs her words carefully before she speaks. She knows that she is in a more privileged position than the vast majority of women. She is economically independent, she has a profession in which she is well respected, she knows what she is passionate about, and she has friends on whom she can rely. Most important, she is not beholden to any man. She has had the run of her own affairs for much of her life, and it is not only in her nature but also in her means to withdraw unequivocally from any situation where she is not treated with the dignity she deserves. Life is tough on women, and Bella thinks she has been well prepared for it. If, as Sophie Tucker is thought to have said, a woman needs good looks between ages eighteen and thirty-five, a good personality from thirty-five to fifty-five, and plenty of cash thereafter, Bella has had all that she needs to make herself happy with her lot. So why should she permit this boy toy to behave badly toward her?
She says, with the calmness of Lot addressing his betrayers, “I wish you had let me know because I’ve made other arrangements. In future, always tell people what you have in mind. I might not have come if I’d known you expected me to spend the night with you. In fact”—she looks at her wristwatch—“I really must leave. Will you pay for my water, or shall I pay for it myself?”
And with that, she walks out of the café bar.
—
Bella is not proud of what she has done, but she feels that she had few options. She couldn’t let Ngulu get away with such insulting presumption. But she is angrier with herself than with him, for it is she who put herself in a position to be treated with so little respect.
It will do her good to spend an evening by herself, relaxing and eating leftovers or making herself an omelet. Then she can set to work cracking Aar’s e-mail and other accounts. Realizing that there was no way of knowing what personal secrets she might find once she cracked the computer’s code, Bella had decided not to seek Salif’s assistance in puzzling out his father’s passwords or bank details. It wouldn’t be fair to him, she thinks, nor would it be fair to his father. The living who happen to have access to the secrets of the dead must deal with them as though they were sacred.
She doesn’t recognize anything she is passing, and wonders if Cawrala has led her astray, but then she spots a familiar landmark and knows that she is on the Uhuru Highway. She knows the way from here. She silences Cawrala and drives the rest of the way home feeling calmer. Next time, she thinks, she will bring along some CDs, music to feed her soul. Jazz, in particular, has always nurtured and sharpened her creativity, bringing out the best in her.
She is only a few streets from Aar’s house when she hears her phone somewhere in her handbag. She decides she won’t bother to answer it. Likely it is Ngulu calling to apologize, and she has nothing more to say to him. In any case, she has never liked the idea of being on call like a medical doctor, obliged to answer every time the phone rings, and she disdains the habits of the text-messaging generation, who seem to think of their iPhones as extensions of themselves. On the other hand, what if it is Salif, or Dahaba having a difficult time and needing to be comforted or picked up? Didn’t Bella tell her to call her at any time of night or day?
By the time this thought occurs to her, she is home. She parks and deactivates the alarm, then goes into the house, turning on the lights in the kitchen. She pulls out her phone to see who has called. Gunilla!
Bella dials her back. They chat for a few minutes, and Gunilla asks after her and the children, speaking as a friend rather than as Aar’s colleague. Bella tells her about the sleepover at Fatima and Mahdi’s and her plans for a solo dinner of leftovers and a quiet evening of work. She makes no mention of her encounter with Ngulu, needless to say.
Gunilla says, “Of course, you haven’t had time to do a proper shop! In fact, you probably don’t even know your way around the neighborhood. You know, I’m not far from you, and there is a big mall close to my house that doesn’t close until about nine in the evening. I know how difficult it can be to figure out daily life in a city that you are not familiar with. Would you like to give me your shopping list, and I can get the items for you and bring them over later? I have to do a shop myself.”
“I don’t want to trouble you,” says Bella.
“Or how about this? You have a bite to eat. I’ll come for you in an hour or a little less, and we can go shopping together. I’ll take you home, and if you have the energy, we can have a chat and a cup of something.”
Bella’s heart surges with pleasure, but still she hesitates. “Are you sure you have the time to do all this?”
“I do,” says Gunilla, “and I’d love to see you.”