Various Flavors of Coffee (20 page)

Sometimes, when we are not in favor or when Abou Bekr wishes to play with us, we are not even granted the honor of being spat at, but are made to stand and watch the business of the court until he decides to send us away again.We are told that he is well disposed toward us, that this interminable wait is simply a formality, like the queue in a post office.There will also have to be a
harour
, or assembly of elders, which will debate our application, and sometimes Abou Bekr uses the difficulty of convening this as a reason why nothing is happening. It is a fiction: everyone knows that he alone makes the decision.

In the meantime, we busy ourselves assembling our caravan.We have enlisted the help of one Desmond Hammond, a former military man who is now making his fortune trading ivory and other goods. He and his partner, a Boer called Tatts, vanish for a week at a time, laden down with Remingtons, Martini-Henrys and ammunition: when they return their camels are festooned with huge tusks, like some strange hybrid mastodon unknown to Darwin.

Another curiosity of this place: you cannot buy the sexual services of a woman.This is not because they have any scruples, rather the reverse—any woman of a nubile age is already purchased. Since there is no limit to the number of wives a man can have, a rich man continues adding them as the fancy takes him. Hammond tells me that before the women here reach puberty they are circumcised, a concept I found quite hard to grasp at first and which still revolts me as I write this. It is different in the Interior, where we are headed. Among the Galla, a woman may take a lover even when married: if a man’s spear is left outside her hut, no other man can enter, not even her husband. I cannot help reflecting that this arrangement is preferable to the brutal pseudo-civilization of the coast, and for that matter compares quite favorably to the way we do things back home.

Curious, isn’t it, how one can come all this way, see so many things, and yet find oneself reflecting not on what is strange and new, but on what one left behind—the strange and old, as it were.What was that line of Horace that was drummed into us at school?
Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt—
“Those who chase across the sea change their skies but not their souls.” I wonder whether it is altogether true.

Regards, Wallis

*

My dearest Emily,

Zeilah 2nd August

We hope to be leaving here soon. Ibrahim Bey, the coffee merchant, is coming to Zeilah, and according to the latest reports will be here in a few days.We are optimistic that with Bey’s help the administrative difficulty which has pinned us here will somehow be resolved. Certainly Abou Bekr’s courtiers seem to be full of happiness for us: they mention Bey’s name and smile.

Poor Hector—he has been fretting about the rains. At one point he was thinking of leaving me here, making his way back to Aden and on to Ceylon before the bad weather comes, but apparently your father’s instructions were that he must see me established at all costs. I do not find his company any easier, but I am grateful for it.To be here on one’s own would be very harsh.

I have just been watching two cormorants engaged in a courtship dance: it was a hilarious sight.The male is the more brightly —

[
twenty-five
]

nd that’s when I see her.

I’m sitting on the deck of our boat, writing a letter, when another boat comes round the bend in the river. A dhow, under human power—four pairs of black oars rising and falling rhythmi-cally, as one.And, on the deck, a tableau:

A man in Arab dress—a white robe—enormously large, is seated on a folding throne-like stool, one hand resting on his knee: putting his weight on it, as if he might be about to spring to his feet.The posture speaks of alertness, eagerness.The sensual, heavy face is that of a potentate, but the eyes—those hooded eyes—miss nothing as they scan the jetty. Big, fleshy lips, an Arab’s curving nose. Behind him, standing, is a Negro: a tall man—or rather, a tall boy, for despite his height there is something youthful in the black face. He stands like a sentry, waiting for a command, his hands folded loosely over the pommel of a huge weapon, a kind of sword, the point sticking in the wooden deck, just as in London a man might rest both hands on his walking stick.

And behind
him,
at the Arab’s other shoulder, stands a girl.

A saffron-yellow robe envelops her, from her ankles to her hair. The face below the headscarf is delicate, fine-boned, almost Indian, but the body . . . as a momentary breeze along the river ruffles the gown, I see that she is strong and supple, her posture as upright as an athlete’s. She is, I realize with a start, quite breathtak-ingly beautiful, her skin so black that like a piece of split coal it seems almost silver where it catches the light.

A whistle blows.The dhow raises its oars, as smartly as a coxed four on the Thames at Eton, and drifts in toward the jetty. People run to and fro with ropes. From nowhere a crowd appears and surges excitedly toward the boat; the inevitable passionate hubbub begins.The dhow’s trajectory takes it near to where our own craft is moored.The two men continue staring ahead, but as the dhow passes, the girl turns her gaze a little and looks directly at me.The effect of making contact with her eyes is extraordinary—it is all I can do not to recoil, to hold her gaze without flinching from that remarkable beauty.

The moment the boat docks the Arab is on his feet. He is a heavy man, but nimble; he needs none of the offered hands to help him onto dry land.The Negro follows, also disdaining help, holding his sword in front of him as a priest might hold a cross. Then the girl comes ashore—a swift, confident stride: a hint of the figure inside the robes pressing against the cotton as she steps up onto the gunwales, balances there for a moment on her bare feet, and then jumps—or rather, steps: there is no discernible effort—onto the jetty, balanced as a cat.

After that comes the usual chaos—porters and the unloading of cargo. I continue to watch her, mesmerized. Her feet are black—so black they are almost gray: but when she stepped from the boat there was a flash of pink at her soles. Beneath the loose-fitting headscarf the hair, one can now see, is long and wiry.Tendrils and dark zigzags escape. The yellow robe
—sari,
one might almost

say—blows against her, outlining first one part of her body, fleetingly, then another . . . she puts a hand to her head, adjusting it, and I see that the palm of her hand is pinkish gray as well.

The luggage is not unloaded yet, but the Arab gives an order or two, his voice booming; then the three of them walk up toward the village, still in the same formation, toward the royal compound. I watch the saffron-yellow robe amongst the press of black heads—the way she moves, so unlike them: strong and light and easy, her shoulders pulled back like a runner. Something clicks in my brain, a key turning in a lock I had not even known was there. The sensation is quite acute: there is no mistaking it, although whether it is locking or unlocking I cannot say. I find I have been holding my breath: when I release it, the sound that comes from me is like a gasp. I look down. In my hand is the letter to Emily, half finished. I crumple it in my fist and throw it into the water, where it circles twice before drifting, slowly at first and then with gathering speed, down that black, silent current toward the sea.

[
twenty-six
]

“Piquant”—agreeably stimulating to the palate. Pleasant; tart; sharp or biting; pungent.

—pangborn,
Principles of Sensory Evaluation of Food

*

am still sitting there half an hour later when Hector
hurries back. “We’re summoned,” he says shortly. “Ibrahim Bey has arrived. Now it seems the damned nigger king will talk to us

after all.”

“Well, it’s good something’s happening. At last.” “It’s damned impudence, if you ask me.”

I get up from my camp-chair and make to go ashore, but he stops me. “I think we should make a show of this, Robert. We’re not just here as individuals, like that thieving scoundrel Hammond.We’re here as representatives of British Industry. Even if he won’t respect the man, he might respect
that.
”

And so it is that we walk into the court of Abou Bekr—the tin-pot tyrant of a godforsaken dung-heap in a tiny fly-ridden corner of savagedom—wearing as much regalia as we can muster: white tie,

tails, cummerbunds, and in Hector’s case, a rather splendid white hat surmounted with red cockatoo feathers.The Africans look at us in-curiously. I suspect that to them, it simply looks as if we have at last started dressing appropriately, as the tribes of the Interior do.

Abou Bekr is lounging on his couch, eating dates. Ibrahim Bey stands in front of him. A silver tray has been placed at the tyrant’s feet. On it are a pile of leaves—some kind of spice, perhaps, or drug, a gift from merchant to king. The Negro is at his master’s shoulder. I look for the girl but she is nowhere to be seen.

We are spotted and waved forward.Abou Bekr performs the introductions in a language none of us understands, though his gestures are clear enough. Bey, Hector and I all shake hands.The king speaks again; a document is brought; he dunks the royal seal in ink and presses it to the paper, splashing some ink on his white robe as he does so.Then, without a hint of a smile, he holds out his hand to me. I take it: it is leathery and rough, like the paw of a leper, but I shake it all the same. He stares fiercely.We are dismissed.

“Have you been here long?” Bey inquires solicitiously when we are outside. He might be meeting us off a slightly delayed express train.

“Nearly a month,” Hector growls furiously.

“Oh. Not so bad then.” Bey smiles.“It’s good to meet you both. You, I think, must be Crannach. And you,” he turns to me, “must be Robert Wallis.”

“How did you know that?”

“My good friend Samuel Pinker wrote to tell me you were coming to Africa. He has asked me to help you in any way I can.” He bows his head.“I shall be honored to do so.”

“What caused the delay?” Hector asks brusquely. “What delay?”

“Why did his royal lowness need to keep us waiting so long, exactly?”

Ibrahim Bey’s big face assumes an expression of bafflement. “I

have no idea. But in the meantime, there is still the council of eld-ers to square.Will you make them a gift? I have taken care of Abou Bekr.”

“A gift?” Hector’s face is sour. “A couple of goats should do it.”

“We don’t have any goats,” I point out.

“And if we did,” Hector says ponderously, “we wouldnae exchange them for travel permits in a country where we are already entitled to pass freely, as subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.”

“Of course,” Ibrahim Bey says thoughtfully. “There is absolutely no obligation to give anything at all.” He catches my eye and winks. “But you may find yourself stuck here for a very long time if you do not.”

“I also happen to be of the opinion,” Hector says, “that whenever a white man resorts to bribery, he makes things worse for every other white man who follows.”

“Then I am fortunate not to be a white man—or at least, not quite,” Bey replies. He has, I realize, enormous charm: another man might have taken offense at Hector’s tone, let alone his words, but Ibrahim Bey acts as if it were all a great joke. “But assuming that the
harour
give their permission, will you agree to share the costs of a caravan with me? I too need to get to Harar, and the larger the group, the smaller the risk.”

“Why? Is it dangerous?” I ask.

“That journey is always dangerous, my friend. Once we are be-yond the protection of Abou Bekr”—here Hector snorts contemptuously—“everyone is fighting everyone else. Menelik, the Abyssinian Emperor, is fighting the Italians and subjugating the Galla.The Galla are fighting all the other tribes.The Egyptians are stirring up trouble wherever they can, in the hope that somebody will ask them to invade. But we have guns, and a piece of paper signed by Abou Bekr, and the protection of our passports. We would be unlucky to be killed.”

It’s a strange thing, but after Bey has made this speech, explaining just how dangerous the expedition is, I feel greatly reassured. That is the charisma of the man, I suppose—I realize with a jolt of surprise that he reminds me, a little, of Samuel Pinker.

“But we’ll nae bribe anyone,” Hector repeats doggedly.

“You would tip a porter or a waiter,” Bey suggests mildly.“Why not a king or a headman?”

“A tip comes after.” Hector says it firmly.“A bribe is before.” “Then that’s settled. A gift of two goats, to be given
after
the

meeting. I’m sure they will accept your word that two goats is what they’ll get: an Englishman’s promise is notoriously reliable.” Bey claps his hands.“And now, may I offer you coffee? I have made camp on the hill—it is a little cooler up there.”

Hector says disgustedly,“I have some preparations to attend to.” Bey looks at me.“Thank you,” I say.“I’d be honored.”

“Typical Arab,” Hector mutters as Bey strolls up the hill. “He only wants to travel with us because he knows they won’t dare at-tack a British caravan. I wouldn’t mind betting that he paid Abou Bekr to make us wait.”

Porters are
ferrying water and a goat is being skinned as I make my way through Bey’s encampment. At the center one tent is larger than the rest.The Negro youth is standing outside it, supervising a group of women cooking over a fire.When he sees me he silently lifts the flap and motions for me to go inside.

The interior has been hung with patterned silks, and overlap-ping carpets cover the floor.There is a pungent, spicy scent, some kind of incense; later, I come to know it as myrrh. In the middle of the space, either side of a low table, are two throne-shaped stools.

“Robert—welcome.”

Bey emerges from another chamber. He has changed his clothes; now he wears a flowing pair of cotton trousers, with a shirt

of the same material and a waistcoat of patterned silk. He does not move like a heavy man as he steps quickly toward me and clasps both my shoulders in greeting.