Dirty Feet - Edem Awumey [11]
“. . .”
“A few years ago I experienced a moment of great intimacy with someone who resembles you. A beautiful night. Serene and passionate. Quite a contradiction, you might say. Don’t take this badly, but it was what’s referred to as an encounter. Truly. Only, his skin was dirty. But once he’d washed he was brand new. Shining. Like you. But you won’t take it the wrong way, will you? A treasure of softness under the filth. If I may be so bold, would you be interested?”
“. . .”
“Please don’t be upset. I could pay you the equivalent of your night’s earnings and a handsome compensation on top of that. How does that strike you? Of course, you could take a bath . . .”
“. . .”
Askia dropped the man off in front of his mansion and drove back into the night.
13
OLIA INVITED him over for lunch. She still had not found in her boxes the signs, the photos of Sidi Ben Sylla’s passage through Paris. He started to tell himself, Askia, it’s all a joke. Sidi is a joke, the myth of a father you never had. He had stopped as usual at the Jardin du Luxembourg. There were new pictures on the park fence. It broke the routine, this change of scenery in the city where he lived. He had often wished he could drive his taxi across the landscapes hanging on the fence.
This time the exhibition was about volcanoes. Beautiful shots. The work was titled “Of Volcanoes and Humans.” Impressive, the orange summits with little yellow flecks, a music of lava descending a slope, the lava flowing, and standing there in front of the scene framed on the board, Askia thought, The lava had better not descend too quickly. It had better cool before reaching the valley. It must remain an image and not engulf the lane where he stood. The lane, the city, and Askia’s quest. In the valleys where the lava was heaped, everything was grey. Roofs of ash on the houses and trees. The valley town inhabitants forced to leave. In long lines, bundles on their heads, their shoulders. He had not left because of volcanoes or lava. Instead it had been the murderous nights, the violence he had had to escape, even if, in that coastal city on the Gulf of Guinea devoted to torture, it was he, Askia, who had done the torturing.
Eventually he went up to Olia’s apartment. She came very quickly to open the door, gazing at him intently, and he saw Modigliani’s Anna Zborowska. He had seen the portrait in one of Petite-Guinée’s art books. Olia wore a white collar like the woman in the painting and resembled her, but without the sadness or the long neck, like that of an Akagera giraffe. He called her Anna. In the painting, Madame Zborowska’s first name could be discerned through the purple overlay of the background. Olia was surprised.
“Anna?” she said.
“Anna Zborowska. An invention. Listen, are you sure you didn’t invent the man with the turban? Those portraits you said you made, did you see them in a dream? What if the man and the portraits never really existed?”
“Does he matter to you, that man?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know, Zborowska, that sounds Bulgarian. Do you want to know where I come from? I’m from Sofia. That’s what they call me, my colleagues at the magazine I work for. I take fashion photos, of models. I’m not crazy about fashion, but I have to make a living. I can’t complain. It’s well paid. I’ve been at it for ten years. The rest of the time I do things I enjoy. With my Leica.”
They went out. She put her hand in his and confessed that she was famished. She took him to Le Bulgare, near Austerlitz. The train station. She wanted to give him a taste of Sofia, as she put it. The restaurant owner, who must have known her, gave them a warm welcome. He and Olia exchanged a few words in Bulgarian. She asked for the table in the back. They sat down. She ordered shopska salata as a starter because she had a craving for fresh vegetables. The main dish would be a pork kavarma