That’s where I sat for the next many hours — fifteen, I believe — until Michael returned around 11 that night.
He found me at the Teatime Kiosk at Kotoka, where I happened to be writing my last communication to you, Davidia, or to you, Tina, or to both of you … He laid out on the tabletop four Ghanaian documents, a pair of them for each of us — one a civilian passport, and the other a diplomatic, both stamped with visas for Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Liberia. “I started to come for you, to get your photo snapped — but there was a fellow there, an English, who looked just like you. A perfect double. He agreed to substitute.”
“This doesn’t look at all like me.”
“It looks like you exactly,” Michael insisted.
“Of course it does. To an African.”
I can’t tell you my name, Tina. But don’t ask for Roland Nair.
“I’m born in Kumasi, and you in Accra. Both of us on the same day, because we’re brothers.”
“But I didn’t give you any money.”
Apparently he’d paid none. “I told you — I saved the president’s life. I’ve told you many times.”
“I don’t remember any such lie. President who? Mahama? Is that his name?”
“No. It was in 2005. President John Kufuor. When we have privacy, I’ll open my pants for you.”
“What-what?”
“I took a bullet for him. I’ll show you the scar.”
* * *
At six the following morning, October 31st, we boarded a Kenya Airlines flight to Lungi International in Freetown.
The whole trip, from the sorrows of Newada Mountain to the comfort of the National Pride Suites, took 71 hours.
On the plane I said something which, though it came from my own mouth, I could scarcely believe: “Michael, if we don’t crash, I’ll make it on time. We’ll get to Freetown with five hours to spare.”
It didn’t matter that a swarm of unforeseeables waited ahead, that anything could sink us. To be back in the running felt like triumph.
“How much for your enterprise?”
“What?”
“How much will you profit, Nair, how much money?”
“One hundred K US. That’s the price for betraying absolutely everyone.”
“But, Nair — you didn’t betray me.”
“Not quite. Not yet.”
“The slate is clean between us.”
“I tried to steal your girl.”
“I take it as a compliment.”
* * *
When we landed here in Freetown, Michael took a car to the National and I took another, first to the Paradi Restaurant for the briefest and happiest of errands — retrieving a bit of computer equipment — and then to the Bawarchi, where I waited until my friend Hamid arrived with one hundred thousand dollars in a blue plastic pouch with a zipper. I held the money in my lap while he used his own computer to examine the goods, and then we parted ways. No handshake. But if the chance comes again, I think we’ll do business.
Late last night Michael and I met with some men in the bar downstairs and arranged to hire a boat, a big one. Experienced captain, plenty of fuel, and next stop — anywhere. Abidjan, perhaps. Though neither of us has much French.
Meanwhile we’ll confine ourselves to this building, because too many people know Michael by sight. We share a suite of two rooms. The air conditioner and TV seldom work — no generator at the National — so it’s hot, and it’s boring. This afternoon for entertainment I watched Michael cut the stitches in his arm with barber scissors and pull them out with his teeth.
We’ll wait till after midnight to break camp.
Maybe Liberia. Much is possible there. We’ll claim a patch of jungle and a strip of beach, and I’ll start my semi-honest account while Michael maps out a scheme or two for international conquest.
We don’t have to put down roots. Maybe we’ll keep moving. Michael and I both liked Uganda. Why not? The climate’s pleasant.
When I left him two hours ago, Michael was downstairs in the bar, bent over a bulky very out-of-date video game machine, saying to it, “Pchew! Pchew! Pchew! In yo face, outa space!”
For him, Davidia, you were simply Fiancée Number Five. But for me. Good Lord. For me.
* * *
Tina, you more than once predicted that the coldness of my heart would someday make you a bitter woman. I think you chose me for exactly that reason. You must have wanted it. If you’re bitter, you devised to become that way, and I think you chose me as your instrument. So stop it. Stop going on and on about it in my mind.
* * *
Maybe back to Ghana. Maybe Senegal. There’s always Cameroon.
Or we might leave this continent behind us and fly to Kuwait, where Michael counts on a most enthusiastic welcome, having once, he revealed to me this morning, spent several months reorganizing and polishing every aspect of personal security for that country’s emir, Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, “thus prolonging his joy for many years.”
I’m inclined to believe it.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Denis Johnson is the author of eight novels, one novella, one book of short stories, three collections of poetry, two collections of plays, and one book of reportage. His novel Tree of Smoke won the 2007 National Book Award.