Dirty Feet - Edem Awumey [20]
So she said, “I’ve found the man with the turban. He’s returned to the top floor of the building where the Songhai frescos are. He’s back in the picture. What do you say to that? Say something!”
Askia remained curiously silent. Sidi, he thought, was playing a game, hiding or showing himself on a whim, erasing and restoring his footprints in the sand of the cities.
Olia shook his shoulder. “I’m taking you to the loft.”
“. . .”
She took his hand in the street. They went down into the metro. His cab was in the garage because of a breakdown. The mechanic had announced that it would easily take half a day to get it running again. Until then he could take a break.
Olia was a little restless. Eager to see the turban again. He felt nothing. At the Châtelet station she let go of his hand and left him behind, walking ahead of him on the metal carpet of the moving sidewalk, the treadmill. She ran and stopped in the middle of the long grey belt conveying them to the way out. He saw her from a distance on the stage of the treadmill, her delicate feet on the metal. Olia standing there with her tinted hair and long skirt, the girl from Sofia on the stage of the moving sidewalk in the belly of Lutetia, planted on the music of her feet, turned away from the direction the metallic ribbon was moving in, turning her back to the world on the move but facing the other riders on the treadmill. With her long skirt she could well have been assuming the preparatory position, the genesis of the first steps of a Russian or Zulu ballet, Olia onstage somewhere in Kamchatka or Bulawayo, ready to perform the first dance in celebration of the end of all quests and the exhaustion of the roads.
The strips of the steel belt slipped by under her feet and were swallowed up under the smooth surface of the cement that came after the treadmill. Askia saw her on the last strips just before they reached that smooth surface and was afraid she would go under with them. He leapt forward, jostling an old woman who was in the way, and grabbed Olia before she was devoured. He lifted her, and, propelled by the final thrust of the belt, they ended up on the ground, with Askia’s bulk enveloping, covering, cushioning the fall of Olia’s transparent, slight, fragile body. They laughed like children, to the applause of an indigent who looked like a Negus — a shock of hair and a serene face — sitting in a corner and reeking of urine. A man with the cup and drama of his misery placed at his feet. On his chest the Negus of the metro carried a rectangular piece of cardboard bearing a message: A coin and I bless and cover your flight. Askia approached the man while rummaging in his pockets. The man chortled. His chin danced and displayed the ruined landscape of his teeth, the landscape of his gladness at trading a smile with the world.
They hurried towards the turnstiles. Olia hoisted her leg over the horizontal bar blocking the narrow passageway and slipped her small body through the tiny space between the ground and the gate that swung open to let commuters through. Askia was taken aback. She had retained something of the rebel, the outlaw. He searched in the pockets of his jacket and eventually pulled out a folded ticket that he inserted in the slot of the machine, but it would not let him pass. The horizontal bar refused to yield to the pressure of his legs and the small electronic screen flashed red: Ticket not valid! He repeated the procedure. Ticket not valid! Pushed the bar. Ticket not valid! Back in his corner the Negus giggled and said, “I see you’re