The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [63]
—I was calling your name.
—They wrapped me in a blanket and took me away. I had burns on my side. They had to cut my clothes off me at the hospital.
—Burns?
—Scrapes. From what, I don’t know. The embankment, I guess.
—I’m so sorry.
She took a sip of water, reached back and squeezed her hair, then brought it forward of her shoulder. We did this already, she said.
—Do you live alone? he asked.
She hesitated. She wiped her hands on her kanga. Her feet were bare. Callused on the heels. More or less. Peter commutes.
—Peter is?
—My husband. He lives in Nairobi.
Thomas tried to deflect the blow. Is that Peter? he asked. He pointed to the picture.
—Yes.
—What’s he do?
—He’s with the World Bank. He’s here working on a pesticide scheme.
—You knew him before?
—I met him here.
Thomas stood, the better able to process these unwelcome bits of information. He clenched and unclenched his hands. Restless, feeling jumpy.
—Why the Peace Corps? he asked.
She took another drink of water. She looked out the window at the incipient storm. I had a friend, she said ambiguously.
A great waft of scent blew in with a gust, like an announcement of a woman standing in a doorway.
—It’s not so unusual, is it? she added. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Her shoulders brown and polished, her arms muscled. He wondered from what.
—You’re reading Rilke, he said, surveying the low bookcase. He examined the titles and the authors. Jerzy Kosinski. Dan Wakefield. Margaret Drabble. Sylvia Plath. Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
—I read anything I can get my hands on.
—I guess so, he said, fingering a copy of Marathon Man.
—I beg people to send me books. There’s a pitiful library in Njia. In Nairobi, I go to the McMillan Library at the British Council. I’ve been on a Margaret Drabble kick.
—You teach.
She nodded.
—What?
He picked up a copy of Anne Sexton and flipped through it. He distrusted confessional poetry.
—A little bit of everything. The curriculum is based on the English system. There are exams the children have to pass. A levels and O levels and so forth. They have to memorize the counties of England. What good that will do them I’ve no idea.
Thomas laughed.
—I teach thirty children in a cement room the size of a garage. I use books published in 1954 — giveaways from some village in Britain. They have peculiar English graffiti in them. “Arthur is a wanker,” and so on. What does your wife do?
Thomas leaned against the wall and rolled his shirtsleeves. The humidity had saturated the room. A crack of thunder startled both of them, though they might have expected it.
—The storm, she said.
She stood up and cranked the windows closed, even as the deluge began. The rain came straight down, at no angle, and created a dull roar on the tile roof so that they had to raise their voices. From somewhere outside the house, there was a wild riot of wind chimes.
—My wife’s father was a missionary in Kenya shortly after World War II, Thomas explained. An Episcopal minister. He’s reverent about the time he spent here, says they were the best years of his life, et cetera, et cetera. Privately, I suspect there’s a woman somewhere in the story.
—It’s a challenge any daughter might have to take on, Linda said.
—Regina has a fellowship to study the psychological effects of sub-Saharan diseases on children. What she sees is pretty grim, he said.
—Your wife must be very brave.
He felt cautious, discussing Regina. He wished they didn’t have to. About this, very.
Linda turned her head away and gazed out at the storm. Nothing to see but sheets of rain. When it was over, he knew, white and cream petals would blanket the ground.