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By Root 401 0

and unacceptable. I spoke halting Arabic, smoked cigarettes openly was not a Muslim, and was an American on top of that. On the day when President Kennedy and Khrushchev had their confrontation over the independence of Cuba, in the hours when the next world war hung like an unpaid debt over our heads, no one spoke to me. The male employees ignored me; as if by a time warp we were all returned to my first day at the Arab Observer. The women were openly hostile. Papers which they needed to bring to my desk were handed over by the coffee server or the copy boy. Actions by people thousands of miles away, men who didn't know I was alive and whose sympathy I would never expect, influenced my peace, and rendered me odious. Kennedy was an American, and so was I. I didn't have the language to explain that being a black American was qualitatively different from being an American. I worried like everyone else, but made myself scarce in the office.

Vus was trying and so was I, but neither of us was able to infuse vitality into our wilting marriage. He steadily gained weight as I became thinner. Indifference became the mattress we lay on, so our sexual sharings disintegrated into unsatisfying periods of hasty and uncomfortable rubbings.

I had promised to stay for six months and we both felt the time was dragging.

Banti and Kebi found excuses to send their drivers to my house bearing food and crates of liquor. Accompanying notes stated that they had overordered or simply had no more storage room.

I became more dependent on our friendship. I spent nearly every evening in the company of one or the other or both of the sisterly women. When we talked, they told amusing tales of home, of their families, of the husbands they loved, of the children, of a merciful God and sometimes of their private fantasies. Vus was never mentioned.

After five months I began to think about my future and Guy's placement in an African school. Ghana's university was known to be the best institution of higher learning on the continent. I thought I'd be very lucky to enroll him there. I had no contacts in Ghana, but I did have Joe Williamson as a brother. I went to him.

“Joe, I'm leaving.”

He showed no surprise.

“I want to go to West Africa. I want to place Guy in the University of Ghana and I need a job.”

He nodded.

“And I need your help.”

He nodded again and said he had been expecting my decision and had prepared for it. There was an offer of a job from the Liberian Department of Information, based on a white paper on Liberia which I had written for the United Arab Republic. He got up from his desk and hugged me.

“Sister, you will be an asset to Liberia.”

Vus accepted my departure with undisguised relief. We had worn our marriage threadbare, and it was time to discard it. He would get tickets on United Arab Airlines. He had friends in Ghana we could stay with for a few days. If I got into trouble I could always count on him. I could have any of the furniture, which was now paid for, sent on to Liberia.

I thanked him for the plane arrangements and refused the furniture. I knew that other women would be in the house be fore the sheets lost my body's heat. He grinned and hugged me.

I had taken Guy into my confidence as far as was possible with a proud, distant seventeen-year-old boy. He knew that for the past year I had been unhappy. After the palaver, I had told him we would remain in Cairo for at least six more months, and he would have time to finish school.

He wanted to have a party. All his friends would come. Would Vus and I leave him the house for a few hours? Would Omanadia cook chicken and lamb and rice her special way? Maybe he could borrow records from the Williamsons and wouldn't it be all right if he served a little beer? His sudden jollity made me perceive how much he had been affected by our pleasureless home. I realized that it had been a long time since I had seen that wide innocent smile, or his fine dark eyes shine.

Banti and Joe gave us a farewell party. Kebi and Jarra prepared an authentic Ethiopian dinner for a merry crowd. David