“You’re lucky,” Roy said, and continued to eat, but holding his head, cocking it slightly, in a manner that indicated he had something more to say. “Wish I could do it, but I’ve got—” He laughed, and his laugh indicated a weight of problems so enormous they could only be laughed at.
Hock said, “Someday you’ll go back.”
“That’s right. Some fine day,” Roy said assertively. “But you’re the man to go now. Hey, give me your cell-phone number. We can talk.”
“I don’t have a cell phone anymore. I’m not taking one.”
“That’s cool.” And perhaps suspecting there was a story behind it that Ellis was not telling, Roy praised him. “You done your work. You ran that store — for how long? Years, man. You put in the time when the rest of us was goofing off. You think I didn’t notice? But I did. You deserve it, Ellis. You showed up every day, and now you don’t have to show up no more. You can just—”
And Roy raised his hand and flicked it, a casual gesture that was like the wing flap of a bird in flight.
“Tell you something, though,” Roy said, hitching forward in the booth. “I’m going to miss you, man.”
It was exactly what Hock wanted to hear, what he’d hoped for, what he needed: someone to miss him. And when Roy said it, Hock felt liberated and ready to go.
“This is for you,” Hock said, outside the restaurant. He took off his cashmere scarf and flipped it over Roy’s head and tugged it. “I’m not going to need it where I’m going.”
The two men embraced, Roy with gusto, Hock feeling tearful.
5
ELLIS HOCK CRAVED that simpler, older world he’d known as a young teacher, which was also a place in which hope still existed, because it was a work in progress. In the years he’d been away he’d often dreamed of going back to the Lower River district of swamp and savanna, yet without any confidence that he could achieve it. The dream was important to him, though: it had quieted him through the enormous digression of marriage and business. And he had just about abandoned any thought that he would return.
But that was before the present of his new phone, and the avenging weeks of Deena’s anger, and the end of his business. Everything was changed, and the timing was perfect. The course of a life seems random, but all lives are shaken into a pattern that makes sense only in retrospect. Hock was a new man, or rather, the man he once was, on his way back to Malawi. Now the country was advertised as a place for holidays, with resort hotels at the lake, in the north, even some game parks. It seemed like many other travel destinations in the world, where many people starved and the tourists ate well and were fussed over.
Already, before his plane touched down, he knew his decision had been right. He relaxed, smiling out the window at the low treeless hills, the creases of green in the landscape that marked the foliage along rivers and creeks, the villages that were made visible by the smoke rising from cooking fires. From the air, the place looked just as he had left it almost forty years before. Where else could you go on earth and say that?
The immigration officer asked him his reason for being in the country.
Hock spoke the sentence he had rehearsed: “Ndi kupita ku Nsanje.”
The man said, “Eh! Eh! What am I hearing?” and reached across his desk to shake Hock’s hand. “And myself I have never been there, father.”
A domestic flight was leaving later in the day for Blantyre. Hock took it and stayed the night at the Mount Soche Hotel, marveling at the crowded dirty city. Loud music boomed from the cars of boys cruising, pulsing against the metal. It seemed to indicate a kind of thuggery. He saw men talking on cell phones and hoped that there were no cell phones on the Lower River.
Assuming he would be staying a few weeks, he visited Barclays Bank and used his credit card to make a cash withdrawal. The clerk, a young man in a shirt and tie, asked him if he was sure he meant to withdraw that much money, and when Hock said yes, he counted the notes twice and squared ten tall piles, tapping them, snapped a rubber band around each of them, then ducked into his cubicle, looking for a bag large enough to hold the money.
“Be careful, sir,” the clerk said, squeezing ten fat envelopes under the heavy glass window.
“I’ll be careful,” Hock said. “I used to live here. I was here at independence. The Lower River.”
“Oh, so long ago. But we have a branch at Nsanje. I think it was different then.”
“Maybe not.”
The clerk spoke again, but was barely audible behind the glass.
“Did you say they’re angry?”
“Hungry, sir,” the clerk said, motioning his fingers to his widened mouth.
In the evening, walking down the street that was still Victoria Avenue, Hock saw an American flag hanging from a steeply angled pole, and a plaque identifying the newish building as the United States Consulate. He made a note of it, and on his way back to his hotel he passed a nightclub, the Starlight. He smiled at the well-dressed men gathered at the entrance, the women in bright dresses and high heels, some of the men getting out of expensive-looking private cars, one a Mercedes, another a white Land Rover. In his time, the men would have worn plimsolls, as they called them, and the women would have been barefoot. And no African would have owned a car, much less a Mercedes.
In his hotel room that night, the music from the nightclub and the city lights disturbed his sleep. He comforted himself with the thought that he was traveling to the darkness and silence of the Lower River.
“I’d like to see the consul,” Hock said to the receptionist at the U.S. consulate the next morning.
“Is he expecting you?
“No,” Hock said. “But I’m an American on tour here, and I think I should see him.”
Hock was conscious of a roomful of people behind him, mostly men, probably applying for visas, and listening, perhaps resenting the access this mzungu had. He felt the pressure of their gaze against his back.
As he was speaking, a white man in shirtsleeves passed by the desk and picked up a file folder from a tray.
Hock said, “Are you the consul?”
The man squinted, annoyed, interrupted in his errand. He said, “I’m the PAO. Public affairs officer.”
“Can I see you a minute?”
The man sighed in a way that was unambiguous — overdid the sigh, blinked in exasperation, and hesitated.
“Never mind,” Hock said, hating the rebuff.
The man said, “I’m just going to lunch. And I’m busy this afternoon.”
“Have lunch with me at my hotel,” Hock said. “And by the way, I’m not looking for a visa. I just want a little information.”
The man said, “Okay, I’ll see you here in a little while.”
“Ndikubwera posachedwa,” Hock said.
The man smiled, a wan smile, uncomprehending.
“‘I’m coming soon,’” Hock said. “I was here in the Peace Corps.”
“You people,” the man said, and smiled again, this time with warmth.
The public affairs officer’s name was Kent Gilroy, he had been in the country six months, and it was clear that he didn’t like the place. But with two years to go, as he said, it was too demoralizing for him to admit it. He was impatient with the waiter, repeating his order, a club sandwich. Hock ordered fish and chips, and remarked on how busy the café was.
“Tourists?”
“All aid people. NGOs,” Gilroy said. “A better class of tourist. They’d probably be more helpful to you than I could. I’m just finding my way.”