But they were never to know, and no doubt she who had been their charge was to make sure she herself would forget.
Poor countries provide for poverty. There was not only cheap over-ripe fruit that had improved her figure — Christa, of course, had found a swimsuit and sewn in the sag, so that those who had not slept with the girl watched with the envious desire to know more the sucking movement of the flat belly under wet yellow knit, and the deep rift of breasts into which sea water trickled down out of sight. There were all kinds of vendors of goods and services without the surcharge of overheads. She was outside one of those stone-and-polished-brass banks she had no more business to enter than the old crippled black man who sat on the pavement with his portable workshop spread neatly handy. For days she had been flapping along with a broken thong on her only pair of sandals; for a coin the shoemaker repaired the sandal while she leaned against the bank walls with a bare foot tucked up beneath her. The sun on Tamarisk had provided her with the free cosmetics of a dark, fruit-skin tan and a natural bleach of her hair. The heat made her languid and patient; she was enjoying the sureness with which hands like black roots snipped a little patch of leather to size, folded and sewed it, attached it to the broken thong and hammered flat to the sole the nail that was to hold it in place. It was just then that she experienced a surge of something, a falling into place of people passing that came from the unfamiliar moments of standing still while all flowed, as if one belonged there like the shoemaker, instead of being in passage. And the Africans, the Arabs, the Lebanese, and the Europeans from embassies, economic missions and multinational companies wearing tropical-weight trousers wrinkled at buttocks and knees by sweat, no longer were a spectacle but motes in a kind of suspension, a fluid in which she was sustained.
A man among passersby noticed her in that moment; she did not distinguish him. But he had come into her orbit as others had done and were to do. A few days later Christa took her along to a friend’s flat. A free meal was never to be by-passed; on the way, she scarcely bothered to listen to Christa: —German fellow, I think he used to be in import and export, now he’s going to represent a trade union foundation that’s helping to organize in industry here. He got friendly with Mapetla and that crowd from home. That’s how I know him, and now he’s after me all the time, you know how persistent Germans are, wants me to teach him how to organize among blacks! He’s a very generous fellow. He keeps giving me books, newspaper cuttings, I don’t know what else. You’ll see what a lunch we’ll have … he’s got a cook and everything.—
He wasn’t one of the beach people. Hillela had never before seen their host, with his deep T-shaped transverse and vertical clefts where the razor could not reach properly in the stubby chin, the red underlip with dark patches like tea-leaves he had forgotten to wipe away, and imprisoned behind thick glasses in that botched face, magnified grey eyes with ferny lashes. They changed at once when he saw her. For him there was no need of introduction. — You can stand like a flamingo on one leg. With your bright pink skirt.—
— Udi, what on earth are you talking about — this is Hillela, you don’t mind me bringing her along—
— I am de-lighted … also, you are very welcome to bring along anyone of your friends … any time. I am glad her shoes are mended. But I wish she would be wearing her lovely pink skirt. — He held in his diaphragm with an almost military courtesy as he showed them into his livingroom.
— I couldn’t. It’s Christa’s. Don’t you notice, she’s got it on?—
— So? Oh you’re right… she has … So … But two legs, that’s not the same thing, that’s a bird of a different feather … how could I be expected …—
There was fish cooked in green coconut milk, then the cook brought in a dessert called Zitronencréme he had been taught to make. Alsatian wine revived trade union anecdotes in Christa and set flowing one of those instant friendships of tipsy laughter. — Isn’t she wonderful, our Christa, with her funny oohs and aahs and her thick Boer accent? — Hillela, do you hear that! From zat Cherman! — Even the mock insults were pleasing and approving. — Well, I’ve just heard him speaking Swahili to the cook, and I don’t hear you saying anything but jambo, jambo after how long? You’ve been here a year?—
— And you? — The man’s attention raced flatteringly between the woman and the girl. — How long are you going to go on saying only jambo?—
— Oh well, Hillela’s right about me … but she doesn’t need any Swahili, she’s on her way to Canada.—
The atmosphere was not one in which kindly lies were necessary. — No, I’m not. Christa, you know I’m not. — The man smiled sadly at the charming head shaking curls in a disclaimer. — Good. You stay here. This’s a nice place. Hot, dull, poor, nice. Isn’t it, Christa. Let’s keep her here.—
— Then will you give her somewhere to stay? You’ve got this big flat… how many rooms … — Christa tucked her head back to her shoulder, a child looking up round a palace. — All this to yourself. She’s sleeping under a kitchen table. I’m telling you! And there are cockroaches — oooe, I hate those filthy things—
The other two laughed at her expression of horror, she laughed at herself; she who had survived interrogations and prison cells.
— That is your Room 101, Christa. Now we know. — But neither of the women caught the reference to Orwell.
Finishing the wine extended lunch. Hillela was not seen on Tamarisk that afternoon; they went off for a drive in his car, Christa still entertaining them, he solicitous and even momentarily authoritarian: —Fasten that strap across you, please. Now, this is how it opens — you try it once or twice, please — Hillela had not worn a seat-belt before. They were not compulsory back where she came from. — I feel like a kid in a pram.—
— All right. I’ll adopt you. — It was said dryly, inattentively; he was turning out of his parking space into the street. Bicycles shot zigzag past and he called after them in Swahili, black-robed women congealed together out of the way. His lips pursed thickly on that chin, the chin pressed on the shirt-collar; he had about him the stubborn weariness of one who lives as a spectator.
Udi Stück demanded nothing. Christa came home — she had a job as a part-time receptionist to an Indian doctor as well as her title as some kind of welfare officer at Congress headquarters — not sure whether or not to be pleased with herself. — I was only fooling, that day … But I bumped into Udi this morning, and you’ll never guess, he’s taken me seriously — he says he’ll give you a place to stay in the meantime. I was only fooling … I feel a bit bad … as if I pushed him to it, taking advantage because he’s so generous.—
Hillela used the schoolgirl phrase. — Is he keen on you?—
Christa’s burst of laughter that shook her like a cough: —Me? Oooe, I hope not! No-oo-o. That’s why I like him, poor old Udi, he’s not like the others who think once you’re on your own here, got nobody, no family … you can’t get away from them. That Dr Khan — I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep on that job. He’s always coming in and making some excuse to lean over to see what I’m doing. He presses his soft tummy against me. Oh it’s no fun being a woman. Sometimes. — She wriggled her shoulders in one of her exaggerated exhibitions of revulsion. — I can’t get over Udi taking me seriously … Oh I think he feels guilty, us with nothing, living all over the place, and he didn’t even have to leave Germany because of Hitler, he’s not a Jew. He’s got that lovely flat — didn’t you like the way the sittingroom has open brick-work at the top of the wall so’s the air comes in? And at night, there’s always a breeze from the bay, he’s so high up, it must be cool to sleep there. I only feel bad because of his wife — apparently his wife died last year and he sort of doesn’t want to have people around, he wants his privacy. But you must jump at it! You’ll have a room to yourself. Fish in coconut milk. That whatsis-zitron pudding — oh my god, I could eat that every day — She hugged the girl while they laughed.