An African Affair (11 page)

“I wonder if he’s the one with the impressive license plate,” Lindsay said, filling him in on the car in the parking lot.

“What number did you say was on it?”

“Four.”

“No. That’s way too low for him. Four would go to an important minister or his deputy.” He thought for a moment. “I heard that Billy Anikulo drives number four.”

“You mean the health minister?”

“Yeah. I wonder what he’s doing here.”

She approached the desk and asked the clerk if Billy Anikulo was registered at the hotel. The clerk blinked quickly.

“No, madam.”

“Well, have you seen him here? Has he met with someone staying in the hotel?”

“I don’t know, madam.”

Lindsay smiled at the clerk. “You don’t know or you can’t say?”

His face showed only the slightest trace of a smile in return. “I don’t know, madam. And I can’t say.”

“What difference does it make?” James asked. “Why do you care if he’s here?”

“Just curious.”

She asked the reception clerk to book a long distance call—she needed to give her whereabouts to the foreign desk and tell the editors to expect a feature on Roxanne—and was told, to her surprise, that there would be no problem. Then they had to choose a room.

The hotel offered two options. One possibility was relatively modern with air-conditioning (no small consideration). This was where James usually stayed in Ibadan. The other was what the management called a “Safari cottage”—a round mud hut with thatched roof, part of a simulated African village. Intrigued, they decided to investigate it, and the clerk offered to take them around the back for a look. James started to follow him. Lindsay hesitated a minute and slipped the receptionist fifty naira to let her know if he found out who Billy Anikulo was visiting.

The hut appeared authentic, though it did include some modern amenities—a phone on the bedside table and, to judge by an immobile ceiling fan, possibly electricity. A few shafts of light filtered in through tiny windows. African crafts had been randomly scattered around—a woven rug, reed baskets, soapstone and small thornwood carvings of zebras and giraffes. In the center was the pièce de résistance—a lumpy double bed surrounded by a ragged mosquito net.

Lindsay said she was game, but James was appalled. Only after Lindsay poked fun at his bourgeois heart did he relent. Inside, she picked up the phone and ordered two bottles of Star beer. The air was hot and muggy, the ceiling fan moved too slowly to create a real breeze, and flies buzzed aggressively around their ears, but, for once, none of this bothered Lindsay. Waiting for the drinks, she asked if she could see the statues he bought, but he was reluctant to unwrap them. Then came a moment of awkward silence as she wondered who was going to make the first move.

She glanced at the bed. “It looks pretty uncomfortable.”

“Yeah.”

She walked over and sat on the edge. The mosquito net had huge holes in it. “Doesn’t look like it offers much protection.”

“No.”

She lay down and bounced a few times. “It manages to be lumpy and hard as a rock at the same time. Why don’t you come over here for a minute and try it out?” she invited.

He didn’t move. Then, after a long moment, he turned toward the door. “If we want those beers, we’d better go to the bar. They’ll never get around to delivering them here. And we should get something to eat before the restaurant closes.”

She quickly got up, straightened her shirt, and headed for the door. Suddenly he pulled her back, put his hand under her chin, leaned down and kissed her very lightly on the lips.

“You’re irrepressible,” he said. “I feel like I’ve plugged into a private energy source.” Then he opened the door for her.

They ordered the only dish the waiter said was available—chicken piri piri, a fiery hot chicken stew served over rice with plantains—and two bottles of beer. When the drinks arrived, Lindsay quickly drained her glass and asked for another. She didn’t eat much, but he finished everything on his plate and then ate what she left. She drank a third beer and relaxed, feeling a little light-headed.

“Tell me about your ex-wife,” she said abruptly.

He looked up, surprised. “Not much to tell. We met in college, sophomore year, University of Michigan. I transferred to Michigan because the African arts faculty was stronger. I came from Atlanta, she grew up in Ann Arbor. We met the first day of classes and were together all three years. We married the summer we graduated. But we were too young—it lasted for only two years.”

“Did you love her?”

He paused, taken aback briefly. “That’s a hell of a question to throw out between dinner and the coffee.”

She played with her spoon. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to interrogate you. I guess I just can’t stop acting like a reporter. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled. “I certainly thought I loved her at the time. But she was full of complexes. She was extremely attached to her family. Hated change of any kind, couldn’t bear traveling, didn’t ever want to leave Ann Arbor. It’s hard to imagine a worse fit, frankly.”

“Did you part as friends?”

“I wouldn’t say that. She was pretty angry because I got involved with someone else right away. But now she’s remarried with a couple of kids. Still lives in Ann Arbor.”

“The someone else—was that the obligatory love affair that follows a divorce? The one that always ends badly?”

“No. The one that ended badly came later.”

The waiter brought the coffee and she took a sip to cover the silence.

“Do you want to tell me about that?” she asked.

“Not really.”

An uncomfortable pause.

“Well, so after the marriage, then what?”

“Then there were others. Many others. But nothing worked out.”

She realized she was pushing kind of hard. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right one.”

He put out his cigarette. “I thought I had. I’m still recovering from that. Listen, Lindsay, I’m not . . .” His voice trailed off. “I can’t seem to make the commitments that most women want—that most women have a right to want.”

“Are you warning me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“I believe you,” he answered. “I think you could do just about anything you wanted to.”

“We’ll see.” She smiled and leaned back. “Don’t you want to know about me?”

“I don’t think I’ll find out what I want to know by asking you questions. Shall we go?”

Walking back to the hut, he reached for her hand. In the room, James busied himself trying to fix the mosquito net by tying knots to close the holes. She lay down and watched, wanting him to make the first move.

He finished working on the net and turned to her. He seemed to be struggling against his own desire.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“A little. Are you?”

“Yes. But I have some reading to do. Will the light bother you?”

He opened his briefcase and took out a folder. Heading to the bathroom, she murmured just loud enough for him to hear: “It’s not the light that’s bothering me.”

She washed up, wondering what to sleep in; her sexy nightgown no longer felt appropriate. She settled on an oversized T-shirt. She lay down on the bed, feeling ridiculous, angry at him and at herself. Was it possible she had so misunderstood him? Had her reluctance on the beach so easily turned him off?

The bedside phone rang and she picked up the receiver. After a moment she answered: “Listen, that’s just not possible. I cannot wait two days for a line to New York. I need to get through by tomorrow morning.” She heard her voice rising. “How can you call yourself an international hotel if I can’t make a phone call or use the Internet or send a fax? What am I supposed to do, use the talking drum?”

She slammed down the receiver.

James put his work aside and with a sigh walked over to the bed. He sat next to her, brushed the persistent stray hair out of her eyes, and said gently, “That sounded pretty angry.”

“Well, I have a right to be.”

“Are you sure it was the hotel that made you mad?”

“Yes, of course. What else would it be?”

“I thought it might be me.”

She fidgeted, playing with the mosquito netting.

“I think I may have misread our relationship, that’s all,” she said casually, getting up to unpack.

“This is what I was trying to warn you about,” he said.

She shrugged. “I thought you were talking about a commitment. I didn’t think that extended to enjoying each other.”

He smiled. “Aren’t we enjoying each other?”

She put down the shirt she was holding and looked at him.

“You know what I mean.”

He met her gaze.

“It usually doesn’t. But it does with you.”

“James, is this your way of saying you’d like us to just be friends? Because if it is, that’s okay.”

“No, Lindsay. I’m just being cautious. Trying to build something real before we jump into bed.” He saw her stiffen. “Look, if we become lovers too quickly everything changes. It will end sooner. I’ve been through that so many times.”

It was, she thought, an odd perspective—one she had never encountered from a man before.

“Fine,” she said, grudgingly. “I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s go to sleep.”

He nodded and put his papers away, then climbed into bed next to her and turned out the light.

They lay silent for a moment.

“What was that about on the beach?” she blurted. “You weren’t so cautious then.”

“I know. But that was before I realized that this might be more than a few days’ diversion.”

Silence again.

“Maybe you just think too much,” she added. “Don’t you ever just follow your impulses?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about this.”

“I don’t.”

“Good. Good night, Lindsay,” he said.

In the morning, she awoke early because she itched all over. She was covered from head to toe with mosquito bites. Her neck, arms, legs, and stomach were blotched with angry red welts. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Oh, God, they were on her face too. The mosquito net had been completely useless.

When he awoke, his expression didn’t temper her anxiety. She tried to hide her face. “Move your hands,” he ordered gently. He had brought some calamine lotion and tried to apply it with cotton balls, first dabbing lightly at her face, then her arms and legs. Miserable, she looked at him. Miraculously, he had emerged relatively unscathed—just a few bites on his legs and chest. “I guess I’m just not as sweet as you are,” he said.

“That’s for sure,” she said. “But I should have known better.”

“Well, you said you wanted an authentic African village.”

“Not a really authentic one. I wanted a tourist African village, a sanitized version without snakes and mosquitoes. No wonder the other cottages were all empty.”

“Yeah, that was a clue. I warned you about romanticizing Africa.”

“I know. You’ve warned me about all kinds of romance. What about you? Are you itchy?”

“No. But we’ve got to get you to a doctor. You’re having an allergic reaction and you probably need some extra quinine too.”

They packed their few belongings. While he went to settle the bill, she waited in the car, too embarrassed to be seen. She looked around the parking lot to see if the number 4 license plate was still there. She found it, and watched three men approach the car. She didn’t recognize any of them. One of the men got behind the wheel. Another rode shotgun. The third, probably the health minister himself, climbed into the back. He was tall and heavyset, dressed casually in a pair of khaki pants and a loose-fitting lightweight shirt. When James returned seconds later, she gestured toward the car and asked if he recognized anyone. He too couldn’t identify any of its occupants.

She was feverish on the long drive home. She finally fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams in which she narrowly escaped multiple dangers: a crocodile crept up on shore and dragged her underwater, bandits chased her with pangas, and a lion paced up and down, up and down outside her tent, ready to pounce the moment she emerged.

It took nearly a week for the fever to subside and the welts to diminish. James visited every day, bringing lotion and Benadryl to control the maddening itch. He sat on the edge of her bed, telling her stories about his adventures in bush villages trying to locate religious sculptures. He was charming and attentive, but, although he liked to tease Lindsay about her romantic notions about journalism, he resisted mentioning his own emotional state, or their standoff in Ibadan. She began to wonder if he simply wasn’t attracted to her. She would have liked to talk more with Maureen, but Maureen was busy following her own stories and, when she was home, spent a lot of time in her room. She seemed to have come down with some kind of lowgrade virus that sapped her energy. It worried Lindsay, but Maureen dismissed it as simply a reaction to the heat.

Lindsay used the enforced bed rest to write and file her feature on Roxanne Reinstadler. By the time she was ready to resume her full workload, several weeks had passed since she had identified Babatunde Oladayo’s body. There had been no announcement or local coverage of his death—no student uproar, no demonstrations, and, so far, no government reaction to her story. The military government hadn’t even responded to her Olumide interview, which had in fact made the front page in New York; the silence, as they say, was deafening. So far, the American ambassador’s predictions hadn’t come true. There was no move against Fakai, whose campaign seemed increasingly paranoid. He made a few public appearances but didn’t announce them ahead of time, in order to keep the authorities in the dark; he gave no interviews to the foreign press, though his aides still held out the promise of an underground press conference sometime in the next three weeks. In fact, the political scene was strangely quiet, like a huge bloated balloon floating eerily in the air while everyone waited nervously for it to burst.