‘My aunt. You’re lucky, Elias,’ she laughed. ‘You who are born in the city don’t have to put up with relatives staying all the time.’ At that she stood up and moved away. The camera’s power had been dispelled.
An aunt then, of course. How I wished it had been a mere servant. The presence of an elder in the house, a chaperone, lent respectability to my visit, the reason Saffia was relaxed. I suspected it was important to her to do the right thing.
Below us, the cry from a minaret, and then another, the beginning of evening prayers across the city. For a while we both listened without speaking. Saffia rose to switch on a light or two above us and at the same time offered me another beer. As I was about to answer an old woman appeared carrying a rolled mat under her arm — the aunt, presumably. She eyed me narrowly and spoke a few words to Saffia in their language. Saffia responded. I have no idea what was being said. The old woman withdrew, walking with slow steps and continued mumblings, pulling a shawl from her shoulders over her head. At the edge of the verandah she spread the mat on the floor and began the movements associated with prayer.
It began to rain. A pattering at first, becoming faster, like running feet. Then the gentle moan of wind. Saffia watched the skies for a moment and suggested we move indoors.
‘I must be going,’ I said suddenly. I stood up, collecting my hat from the seat where I had laid it.
‘Let the rain stop first.’
But I knew Julius was unafraid of the rain; I didn’t want him to find me there.
‘Really, I should go. I was supposed to meet somebody. I had quite forgotten.’ I put my hat on.
Saffia offered to fetch me an umbrella. Immediately I saw in her offer not a mere umbrella, but a reason to return. I was about to accept, then shook my head. I might be expected to return the umbrella through Julius. Of course I would.
At the door she held out her hand. Her touch was almost painful to me. Some women offer you little more than the tips of their fingers. Not Saffia, she closed her hand around mine, the heat melted into me, seeped through my blood, filling it with a flash of white-hot hope.
Inside, her aunt’s voice calling. Saffia withdrew her hand from mine.
‘Come and visit us again soon, Elias.’ Us.
I turned and fled into the rain. Out in the street I pushed my hand deep into my pocket, closing my fingers around the warmth of her touch, like an object I was afraid of losing. For a long time as I walked I wondered what it might be like to feel that touch, every day, whenever you felt the need. On an arm, on the back of your neck, on your cheek. A kiss. An embrace. I walked on, the rain filling the brim of my hat and pouring off, streaming down my neck. By now it was properly dark and I faced a long walk home.
I am a person generally happy in my own company; still I had no desire to spend the evening at home alone. I found myself passing an establishment I had once or twice frequented and stepped inside. I took a place at the bar. My hands were shaking and for some reason I felt unaccountably angry. The first whisky I ordered I knocked straight back. I ordered another and drank it neat and warm. The heat hit my belly, the alcohol warmed my blood, I felt the tension ease. I caught sight of myself in the fly-spotted mirror behind the bar; the shadow of my hat brim obscured my eyes. Behind me in the recesses of the room I saw a woman, alone and watching me. I removed my hat and allowed our eyes to meet in the mirror.
She was what you would call a working girl, though of course it never was that easy. They all expected to be paid for, but acted insulted if you suggested such a thing up front. It was always a fine line. Still, with the look we exchanged I felt we understood each other. I beckoned her over and offered her a drink. She accepted with a shrug. I ordered myself another whisky and put my hand on her knee.
Young. Nineteen, perhaps. Her youthfulness made up for what she lacked in beauty. She drank her beer fast and noisily, like a child, with her nose in the glass. I indicated to the barman to bring another and encouraged her to talk, to save me the bother of doing so myself. She lived in Murraytown, she told me, the old fishing village that was now part of the city. I remarked she was a long way from home. She was a friend of the owner, she said. With the subtlety of a mule, she peppered her conversation with references to her rent, her college fees — why do they always claim to be studying? — pointed to the broken heel of her shoe. Within a very short time she was tipsy. I helped her to her feet, told her I was going in her direction and offered her a lift home.
We climbed the stairs to my apartment. She sat down on the settee while I poured us both drinks. I sat down next to her and put my arm around the back of the seat.
‘Don’t you have any music?’ she asked.
‘Why don’t we just talk,’ I said. ‘You’re beautiful.’ I put my hand under her chin, turned her to face me and kissed her. We moved to the bed.
I desired her. I wanted to lie with a woman. I also wanted, urgently and desperately, to rid my system of the still-nameless emotion that had overtaken it. As I raised myself above the girl and in the light of a passing car, I saw not her face but Saffia’s face. When I touched her skin, I felt nothing but Saffia’s skin. I entered her quickly.
The girl, who for her part had been more or less motionless, appeared to come to life and commenced writhing and moaning. No doubt she imagined it was what was expected of her. The truth was it had exactly the opposite effect to what was surely intended. I was forced to increase my activity in proportion to my wilting desire and she took this as a sign of her success, adding endearments and spoken encouragement to her repertoire. I would have liked to place a hand across her mouth, but doubtless she would have started screaming. I concentrated instead on blocking out the sounds. Finally, after some minutes, I managed a climax.
In the days following I applied myself to my article. I worked late most nights, hitting the keys until my fingers ached. In between Julius came and went, as before, borrowing twenty-five cents for a soft drink, updating me on the progress of Apollo 10, helping himself to my books. It seemed Saffia had said nothing to him of my visit. At the end of the week, after much drafting and redrafting, my paper was complete. I typed up a final copy and submitted it.
Two weeks later my paper was returned via my pigeonhole with an attached note from the Dean. It had been declined for publication.
CHAPTER 7
A morning. Adrian sits on the window ledge and surveys the patch of land between the back of the bungalow and the perimeter wall. On a length of surgical thread a plastic prescription bottle, filled with sugar solution and fashioned into a makeshift bird feeder, is suspended from a vine. Adrian finishes his cup of coffee, pours the dregs down the drain and goes to shower and shave. When he returns, a tiny sunbird, no bigger than a rosebud, is hovering next to the bird feeder. Its wings, held high above its back, beat so fast the bird is reduced to no more than a smudge of colour and a long, curved beak. Hastily Adrian picks up his sketch pad and block of watercolours and tries to capture the blur of violet-and-black feathers. He should, he knows, be on his way to his office. Instead he draws and watches the bird, weightless in the air, as if held by an invisible filament, and he considers how slender, how insubstantial his reasons for being here.
As a boy he had imagined his adult life as one of countless adventures. Early versions of the same vision saw him involved in the rescue of animals: a drowning dog, a horse with a broken leg. As his imagination roamed further from home, he saved wild animals from forest fires, or even from extinction. Later, the animals were replaced by a girl or a woman: his cousin Madeleine or his dark-haired art teacher. At night he dreamed of his art teacher, of acts of heroism, and of great journeys undertaken, of heights scaled, all with a kind of remote, fuzzy certainty. How exactly these adventures would come about was unclear; they simply lay ahead of him somewhere in a distant, amber-coloured future.