James also tells me that the money I sent to the mission to be handed over to Mama on a monthly basis has all been used up now. She sends her thanks for having supported her so long. But James asks for another contribution because she's having problems with her eyes now that only a doctor can help with. He says he'll write again if there's more news, especially anything concerning Lketinga.
I'm relieved that after such a long time, Lketinga is finally back living at home. But at the same time I'm sad that he has nothing left of the relative riches I left him. Even so, I hope he finds some way to get married again. Funny, I think to myself, it's not two months since I got divorced from Lketinga because I had heard nothing of him for more than three years, and now all of a sudden he turns up back home, talking about getting married again himself. What strange tricks fate plays!
Time just flies past now. Weekends are mostly reserved for my female friends and their children. Now that it's winter we often go skating or tobogganing down the slopes at the end of the village, which is a lot of fun. Afterwards we all sit together in my warm flat and chat while the children play.
One day, coming into spring, — the telephone rings and I recognize with astonishment, the voice of Andrea, the German woman with the long blond hair. People on holiday often exchange addresses at the end of the trip but as a rule you never hear from them again. But now Andrea wants to come and see us. Napirai is delighted. Barely one week later she turns up, on her own, and tells me that her relationship isn't working out: her boyfriend simply doesn't seem to find the time for her any more. Napirai says in that case she should just come and see us more often, and she'll do wonderful things with her hair. Andrea doesn't seem too enthusiastic about that but promises to come back and see us again soon. A few weeks later she does indeed come back after I ask her whether she has the time or inclination to take part in the opening of a shop run by friends of mine who also happen to be customers. She agreed immediately and so the two of us joined in organizing a successful event which would turn out to change her life forever. That evening she fell in love; six months later she moved to Switzerland and a year after that got married. From then on we became good friends, which in turn was going to alter my life dramatically.
Early in 1995 I got a reassuring letter from James to tell me Lketinga had married a young woman and she's already pregnant. I'm really thrilled to hear this and relieved at the same time to hear he's going to be a father again. His new wife is a girl who lived near our manyatta. James will send me a photograph whenever he gets the chance to borrow a camera. I can't wait to see who the girl is: if she lived near us I'm bound to recognize her. I'm really pleased for Lketinga and immediately sit down to write a letter in reply and transfer some money so he can buy a cow for the wedding. I wonder what their child will look like. Will there be a resemblance to Napirai? But for now I just have to control my curiosity and wait patiently; even if James does get hold of a camera it could take two months to get a film developed.
I'm still enjoying work, particularly as my turnover is growing faster than ever. During the course of the spring a new employee joins the firm to help out with the management. As soon as I meet him I realise he's a completely different character to my current boss and I can't imagine how the pair of them can work together. But it doesn't matter to me, as I work mostly on my own and rarely come into the firm. I've got other things to worry about: Napirai will start nursery after the summer holidays and that means I'll have to find a new childminder because the one she has at present doesn't live in the same area as us. Once again I'm lucky and a family we already know is able to look after my daughter. This new family has four children of their own, a girl and three boys, and it doesn't take long for Napirai to feel at home with them too, even if it is a big change at first to have so many other children competing for attention. During the course of the year my mother and Hanspeter move to our village too.
Eventually the big day comes for Napirai to go to kindergarten, proudly carrying her satchel and wearing her luminous road-safety vest. At the kindergarten, an elderly lady introduces herself as the nursery teacher. There are several other parents there and a few of them give us sideways glances rather than a straightforward welcome, partly because I'm the only single mother. But Napirai gets stared at openly by the other children and all of a sudden she doesn't like it. There's no way she wants me to leave her there on her own. It's not the way she normally behaves at all and thank goodness over the course of the next few days she gets over it.
In fact now she more frequently spends the night at the childminder's or with my mother which means I can go out more. Hanni and I quite often go out for the evening for a meal and then go dancing. It seems she knows the world and its wife: wherever we go she meets people she knows and introduces me as the ‘African one’, which leaves me having to answer a lot of questions. Even five years after my return, it seems there are people interested in my love story, and Hanni keeps pestering me to write it all down.
I Decide to Write My Story
Gradually her niggling gets to me and more and more frequently I start playing with the idea of writing my story down. One evening I pick up a checked school notebook and a pencil and hesitantly start trying to cast my mind back nine years.
I think back to landing for the first time in Mombasa on holiday with my then-partner Marco and how the atmosphere of the place and the first impressions had a huge impact on me, as if I were coming home after a long spell away. Back then I couldn't explain it to myself and my first glimpse of Lketinga went right to my soul and overturned my whole life in a matter of seconds. One sight of him and it was as if my whole life up until then had not existed. And now I can see it, feel it, smell it all over again as if it were all happening once more, and it seems my hand starts writing of its own accord, setting all those experiences down on paper. The whole story unwinds before my inner eye like a film and I don't have to think for a second about what I'm writing: it simply writes itself!
I hardly notice the time going by and it's only when my fingers start to ache that I look up at the clock and am shocked to find it's long past midnight. ‘Oh my God, I need to get to bed. Tomorrow is another hard day at work,’ I say to myself. Quietly I slip into bed next to Napirai, who's sound asleep, but rest won't come. I keep writing away in my mind until at last I fall asleep.
The next day when I pick up my daughter after work I read my mother the first few pages I've written. She's surprised but delighted: ‘Are you going to write a book, then?’ she asks. ‘No, no. I'm just going to write it all down so that one day Napirai will understand how great her parents’ love for one another was and how nonetheless they simply couldn't manage to stay together. If anything were to happen to me, nobody else would be able to tell her her true origins.’ My mother immediately goes off to find the letters I wrote her from Africa and gives them to me to help my memory.
Back home I make dinner and see to Napirai. Then when she goes to bed at seven o'clock I quickly do my household chores and finally have the peace and time to read through the pages I wrote the day before. Before long I'm back in the past again and writing away once more almost automatically. I can see Lketinga standing there before me as I describe this tall, good-looking, incredibly exotic, almost feminine man, with his lean strong muscles and wild shining eyes. The setting sun lends a particular glow to his brown body, painted face and long red hair in tight plaits. His long thin body, dressed in nothing more than a red loincloth and a few bead necklaces, is sleek and seductive. Once again I find myself, even as I write down my recollections, seized by a powerful attraction.