I can hear Dorothea talking quietly inside the clinic, the calm and sure tone of her voice, Melinda’s grateful murmur. Bob says something about fake drugs from India. Dorothea reassures him.
When Bob and Melinda and Jackson come back out I tell Jackson I won’t be joining them for the rest of the trip. I’m slightly surprised to hear myself say this so definitively because the thought has only just surfaced. But maybe that’s why: I haven’t had time to consider the consequences.
I don’t choose Magulu; simply, I can’t go back. I can barely bring myself to summon the image of Arnau and its Swiss chocolate quaintness, the faux chalets, the geranium window boxes. Within the coil of its streets, people whisper: Kindermörderin.
‘Are you also ill?’ Jackson squints at me.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not ill.’
‘But,’ he insists, ‘it’s not possible.’
‘What’s not possible?’
‘For you to stay here.’
‘Is there a law?’
‘There is no law. No law. But nothing, look, look! There is nothing here.’ His voice begins to rise, almost to a squeak, like a teenage boy. ‘There is nothing here! A bus once a week! Not even mobile service! Nothing!’
I give him a hundred bucks. ‘It’s all right, I take full responsibility.’
He takes the money and gets in the car.
Melinda is in the back, lying down. Dorothea has put her on a drip and given her a full complement of antibiotics.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Bob says to me. ‘You can’t stay here.’
‘You are my witness,’ Jackson turns to Bob. ‘I don’t want to be accused.’
Bob looks me over. I sense in him the shades of menace, what he hides even from Melinda. How he hopes bad things happen to people. He is familiar with the soothing pleasure of spite. ‘Don’t expect us to sort out the mess you’re gonna find yourself in.’
I try to look calm and resolved. ‘Thank you for your concern, Bob. I hope Melinda feels better soon.’
‘Foolish,’ he mutters.
Foolishness is the least of it, I feel like telling him. If you found out about Arnau, I would watch your face transform with disgust; and even Melinda would shrink back as if from a foul smell.
‘You are my witness!’ Jackson announces in his falsetto, this time stabbing the air, then wagging his finger at Bob. ‘It is not my responsibility!’
This moment of my transgression will bond them, I think. They will talk for hours about my foolishness. They will discuss all the signs that I was trouble, all the ways I was difficult on the trip. How he and Melinda hadn’t wanted me along anyway. I just showed up, a party crasher, with a small suitcase and no safari clothes or sunscreen — not even binoculars or a camera! Odd, yes, there was something odd about me from the beginning. Bob will end up giving Jackson a good tip and calling him ‘pal.’ Back in Chapel Hill, he’ll talk about his pal, Jackson. ‘What a stand-up guy.’
As they drive off, Bob glances back. I wave, a quick ticktock of my wrist. He turns away.
I sit quietly, listening to the sound of the car recede. I feel a touch on my shoulder. Doctor Dorothea. I’m sure she’s going to ask me what’s the matter, why have I been left by my friends — why I am here. But instead she asks if I need somewhere to stay.
Magulu, April 28
She doesn’t speak any English, but somehow we communicate. Gladness is proud of the Goodnight Bar and Inn. It seems to be her own business. When she shows me the room, she walks around it pointing out its many features in loud Swahili. But it is the gestures and the enthusiasm I understand: Look, the windows have bars on them, the bed has a net without holes, the cupboards are roomy. Here is a small sink and mirror. Here are the towels. And a complimentary pair of green rubber flip-flops. Down the hall are the bathroom and the shower. Baridi, she says, turning the knob so that water trickles out. I check my Swahili-English dictionary: cold. She picks up an empty bucket, ‘Moto.’ Hot. The hot water comes only in a bucket.
She does the cleaning herself. I watch her in the bar area, bent double so that her torso is almost perfectly parallel to her legs, dragging a damp rag over the floor. She wipes down the plastic table cloths and the plastic chairs. She polishes the glasses behind the bar. She waters the plants on the veranda. Her industry stands in contrast to the sloth of her customers. They lean back in the plastic chairs and stare at the television and drink beer after beer. The TV is on mute, while a radio plays African rap and whiney Swahili gospel. ‘Mwanza fresh!’ the announcer burbles. ‘Mwanza poa!’
Mwanza, I remember the name. Melinda was looking at the map with her endless questions and pointed to one of its larger dots. ‘Mwanza. What happens in Mwanza?’
Jackson shook his head disconsolately. ‘A bad place. Mwanza. The people there burn old women as witches.’
‘How awful,’ Melinda gasped. ‘Do they really?’
‘They see the red eyes of the old women and they say they are witches, and they lock them in their huts and set the huts on fire.’ He tapped his head. ‘The Sukuma people are very superstitious. But me, luckily, I am Christian.’
Melinda wanted to know more about witches and about black magic, but Jackson quickly became reticent. I think he was ashamed, insulted even.
Now I’m sitting with a Coke on the veranda. The local policeman appears, PC James Kessy. His uniform is immaculate. He speaks very good English, and this makes me think that like Doctor Dorothea he comes from somewhere else. He says he needs my name and passport number. I produce the document. He peers at my passport photo.
‘This is you, Mrs Pilgrim Lankester?’
I think to correct him. Not Mrs. Not Lankester. Anymore. Yet, the truth, that versatile palimpsest, will lead to more questions, will unravel Arnau. ‘Yes,’ I say, instead. ‘That is me.’
‘You have traveled a lot.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ethiopia. What were you doing in Ethiopia?’
‘My husband was working there.’
‘East Timor?’
‘My husband was working there.’
‘He is UN?’
‘International Red Cross.’
Kessy nods in a knowing way. ‘There is always a war. Refugees. Famine. Always employment.’
Yes, I think. Always a large report documenting what humans can do to each other. Always a case file marked Atrocity.
‘And where is he now?’
‘Switzerland.’
‘But he did not come with you?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
Why? An image of Elise flashes in my mind, her frizzy, badly cut hair, her small, sharp features. Her nose is slightly red, as if she has a cold. She is holding her baby. Their baby. Tom and Elise and the baby, like an image on a greetings card. ‘He is busy with work.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I am on holiday.’
‘Holiday?’ he laughs. ‘Without your husband? In Magulu?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think you are confused. Maybe you want to go to Zanzibar or Ngorongoro.’ He looks closer at me. ‘No beaches here. No wild animals.’
‘I don’t want those things.’ I can see how badly he wants to ask but doesn’t: What could you possibly want in this forsaken place?
He hands me back my passport. ‘How long will you stay?’
‘A week.’
‘Then you will return to your husband?’
I nod vaguely, the best I can do. Perhaps he thinks I’m one of those women looking for a young African man, a Masai warrior, a hunky tour guide. Indeed, PC Kessy keeps his eyes on mine, discerning. Half of the truth is part of a lie. But which half? He’s not quite sure.