he hadn’t wanted to investigate, and when they’d woken, they’d been covered with fleas. A woman was passing him now, carrying a child on her back, the baby’s eyes clouded with flies. Thomas needed a drink of water. Colors seemed louder now, more garish; sounds bolder and brighter than they’d been an hour ago. He remembered the first time he’d seen a long red trail of shiny ants and how he’d realized too late they were crawling up his leg. At Gil Gil, a naked woman had lain motionless on the asphalt paving of the courtyard. Naked men had hung from barred windows. They had spit at his feet. Why were so many without clothing in this country? The vision in his right eye was replacing itself with hundreds of bright moving dots. Not a migraine, please, he thought — not now. SCHOOLGIRL DIES AFTER CIRCUMCISION. He remembered the night express to Mombasa, the rhythm of the rails sexually intoxicating. He and Regina had shared a narrow bunk, and it had been a tender night between them, a kind of truce. He’d been reading Maurice, by E. M. Forster. Where had he left the book? He’d like to read it again. Kenyans hated homosexuals, never mentioned them, as though they simply didn’t exist. Rich was coming, and maybe Thomas would let him chew the twigs. What had his mother written? The gas lines were terrible. THREE AMERICANS BEHEADED. Would the car still be there? Or had he not paid enough? Pots and clothing were for sale in the street. A storefront window advertised a Cuisinart. Regina would be seriously worried now. He’d had Welsh rarebit yesterday at the Norfolk, and in his imagination he could still taste it. In reality, he could taste the Tusker. Words. They haunted him in the night. Once twenty lions had walked past him. He had stood frozen, at the side of the car, unable even to open the door to get in. Regina screaming silently from within. They’d gone up to Keekorok with a low battery and four bald tires. The gearshift had come off in his hand. Another time, on a safari, when everyone had left camp, he’d stayed behind to write. He’d been attacked by baboons, and had had to fend them off with a wooden spoon and a metal pot. WITCH DOCTOR HELD IN RUGBY FIX. MAN CAUGHT IN ZEBRA TRAP. At a party at the embassy, a woman in a white suit had taken him for a spy. The air in Karen tasted like champagne. It was even better in the Ngong Hills. He longed for their coolness, for the green of them. He leaned his head against the wall of a building, the cement hot and rough, not soothing. Regina would have the medicine in her purse. If only he could get to a quiet room. He remembered a cave with thousands of bats overhead, Regina falling to her knees, terrified. He’d pleaded with her to move, and in the end, he’d had to drag her out bodily. I am just all right. I have no bad luck. A pleasantry, not meant to be taken as truth. Ndegwa was having spectacularly bad luck. Or was he simply creating it? RAINS CAUSE HAVOC. POOR WATCH HOMES BULLDOZED. AMBULANCE FOUND FULL OF IVORY . Regina would be furious at first, angry to have been kept waiting. But she’d relent when she saw the migraine.
In the market, he let his eyes adjust to the gloom. The stench was even worse now, and he was trying to breathe through his mouth. The people and stalls in the market took shape, photographs emerging from a bath. He saw a woman in a kanga, the cloth wrapped tightly around her hips. She had a lovely, muscular ass. Ndegwa had looked at African women, whereas he, Thomas, was noticing the long, narrow waist of a white woman, the way her cotton blouse billowed over the kanga. And then his chest was so tight, he had to suck the fetid air to breathe.
It was not possible, he thought. Even as he knew it was.
The pain stayed, but his head cleared. The disturbance in his vision subsided. She had her back to him, her long slender back. A basket over her arm. She was bent slightly toward a display of pineapples, examining them for ripeness. A long row of silver bracelets on her right wrist jingled as she moved her hand. Her legs were bare from mid-calf to foot. He looked at