‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Asante sana.’
I was left alone in my room, which I’d immediately felt a connection to and affection for, and I sat down at the escritoire; the little scarred writing desk had a tiny lamp on top and several small drawers and it was near an outlet, though the power, I was warned, would go out every day for several hours — the island had brownouts, but the power always returned, for a few hours at least, so charge your laptop when you have the chance, I was told. I took my computer out of my bag and plugged it in. I worked on my piece about the festival for about an hour, and transcribed some notes from my notebook, when there was a knock on my door. It was Jason.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Mark and I are staying here, too. We’re just having drinks across the way,’ he said, pointing to the other side of the courtyard, ‘where there’s sort of a common area up top, with chairs and day-beds. It’s covered. You should join us.’
I told him I’d be there in a minute and he said not to bother bringing booze, they’d already cracked a bottle of Kenya Cane, so I saved my notes and put on some Muskol mosquito repellent, did a few quick push-ups, locked up, and made my way across the courtyard.
It was raining hard and there were a few leaks in the thatch, but we were happy to be in Lamu and immediately high on the Kenya Cane mixed with lime soda. Jason smoked Marlboro Lights and after a while, after several drinks, Mark smoked them, too. Boris called my cell and I told him what we were up to, but he said he’d stay in, get some much-needed sleep and wait out the rain. He was staying at Petley’s Inn, he said, which faced the sea and had a bar. He had air-conditioning, he told me, but didn’t like the feel of it. We agreed I’d stop by tomorrow.
‘It’s after midnight,’ said Jason. ‘Merry Christmas!’
The muezzin’s call to prayer from a loudspeaker atop a minaret woke me early in the morning, though its echoing, hypnotic music put me right back to sleep. I woke again to the call to prayer, but it was many hours later. I was covered in sweat but it was hot. I sat up, under the mosquito netting, and realized we were in Lamu.
And it was Christmas.
I picked up my Nokia from the bedside table and saw there were six missed calls from Boris and two text messages: Where r u and R u ok, respectively.
So I called him back.
‘Hey,’ I said, when he picked up.
‘Hey man, so you’re okay?’
‘Fine. Yeah sorry. I guess I slept in.’
‘It’s two in the afternoon,’ he said. ‘You missed the greetings.’
‘Yes, sorry, I know. I just haven’t been sleeping,’ I said.
‘It’s okay, man. We’re heading down the coast to a small village at three-thirty, where we’ll eat and stuff. It’s like an hour or so by boats. Should be all right.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘So we’re leaving from the jetty at three-thirty,’ said Boris.
‘I’ll be there.’
When I hung up I put on some shorts and went in search of water and something small to eat. I walked out of the courtyard and into the narrow streets of Lamu. I turned a few corners and there were commercial stalls everywhere, selling colourful cloths of various varieties, wooden curios, from sculptures to dinnerware, and silver, a lot of silverwork. But amongst the stalls and the ceaseless calls of the bazaar, I spotted a shop that sold corner-store items — chocolate bars and aspirin and cigarettes, et cetera. I bought two large bottles of water for the room and a Snickers bar. Across from him a stall sold samosas, so I bought two and started to make my way back to Yumbe House. After turning down a few streets and realizing I was walking in circles, as the same retailers vied for my attention, a small boy asked me what I was looking for. I said, Yumbe House. And he walked me back to the old stone edifice.
In my room, I ate my samosas and Snickers and took my pills and freshened up for the trip down the coast. Then, sitting on my bed, I fell asleep.
I woke up to hard knocking on my door. I sat up startled. It was Mark and Jason.
‘I missed the boat, didn’t I?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ they said.
‘But we’re taking a smaller, faster boat,’ said Jason.
‘And we’re leaving now,’ said Mark.
‘Great!’ I said. ‘I’m ready to go.’
Down at the jetty, we boarded a small boat with an outboard engine and we put on lifejackets and a slim older man piloted the boat.
We were travelling fast along the coastline, the wind blasting our faces fresh, the sun starting to set. I sat on the bow seat, alone, Jason and Mark behind me, the ship’s pilot at the stern, his hand on the tiller. The only sounds were those of the engine and wind and they were like excited meditative silence. My heart raced.
I stepped out of the boat and into the ocean. There wasn’t a dock, so the boat couldn’t take us right up to the beach, so we got out about a hundred metres from land and started walking shoreward in the ocean.
From the beach, we walked for about fifteen minutes into the brush until we reached a clearing, with a fire blazing, a band playing, dancing, and kids kicking around a football.
‘We made it,’ said Mark. ‘How’s this for a Christmas dinner!’
There were coolers of beer and bottled water. We each grabbed a beer.
Boris spotted me and I approached him and said, ‘Sorry about that, man. I don’t know what came over me. Like, hard-core fatigue.’
‘How’re you feeling now?’ he said.
‘Good, man, good.’
‘Well, good,’ he said.
‘Anyway, Merry Christmas!’ I said.
‘Ha yes. Two Jews celebrating, one a Soviet Jew, the other Canadian, celebrating Christmas in an East African village on the Indian Ocean. Somewhat random,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is.’
The sky darkened and sparks flew skyward.
I felt a football hit the back of my legs, so I turned around and pinned the ball under my foot. Stanley stood with a young boy, both waiting for me to kick the ball back into play, so I passed it to Stanley, who overtook the boy and scored on his net, which was delineated by two rocks with a space of approximately two metres between them.
Stanley, the boy and I kicked the ball around for a half-hour or so. The kid was a good footballer but very cheeky, in general, at one point posing for a photo with Stanley and me, making rabbit ears behind my head, his arm stretched high. I had my revenge, though, when I scored on his net several times in a row. He wasn’t much of a goalkeeper. He winded me, however, and I had to quit. I’d worked up too much of a sweat and regretted it.
Four men, two for each fish, carried massive red snappers to the fire and set them up on spits. A table was set up with rice and ugali and collard greens. People lined up with paper plates. The fishes turned in the fire.
I ate only a little of the fish, a few forkfuls, though it was delicious, thinking about how Saul Bellow almost died as the result of toxoplasmosis, from eating red snapper. The parasitic disease was rare and I didn’t think I’d get it from the fish but I didn’t want to eat much, even though it tasted good.