• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

He smiled. So we did.

He let his gaze shift slightly toward the beach. Something had caught his attention, something he hadn’t noticed before: at either end of the bathing area, the beachgoers were nude. A man with saggy buttocks had his back to him and was speaking to a woman lying on a blanket. He could see her hair, but not her body.

—Was it ever easy? he asked.

—You mean light?

—I mean not serious.

—No.

He rubbed his face. Sunburn had tightened his skin. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. They were wasting precious moments together. He wanted to return to the house, where they could make love again, but he knew they might have to wait until it was cooler. Perhaps there was a military truck returning to the village.

—The one thing I miss, he said, is music.

—You don’t have any tapes? she asked.

—I had tapes. But they were stolen. The tape recorder, too. I wonder what’s popular right now.

They sat in easy silence. A dhow skimmed the horizon. Ancient. Unchanged for centuries.

—What was Rich’s visit like?

—Oh, it was wonderful, apart from the fact that he got sick with malaria. We’d told him to take the pills in advance, but, I don’t know, he’s only sixteen.

—Is he OK?

—Yes. He’s recovering in Nairobi.

—Are you making any progress with Ndegwa? she asked.

—Well, there’s the embassy party at the Intercontinental. Will you come?

—I don’t know.

—You’d come with Peter? he asked.

She glanced away. She seemed exhausted. The bus from Malindi would have been grueling. He remembered a long trip to Eldoret that he and Regina had once taken on a bus, and how the driver had stopped so that all the passengers could get out to piss. The women, including Regina, had squatted, letting their long skirts cover themselves.

—You never had a problem with the letters? she asked.

—No, he said. I loved them.

—I find them frustrating, she said. Inadequate.

He sat up, a sudden anger straightening his spine. How could you? he asked, tossing his cigarette onto the cement floor.

She flinched, startled by the non sequitur, the sudden change of tone. How could I what?

—Sleep with Peter.

—Sleep with Peter?

Thomas refused to retract the question. He thought it a reasonable one: how could she, after that Sunday in Njia, be with another man?

He combed his hair with his fingers. He needed a bath. Jesus, he must stink. An ugliness that had no place at that table, a stench more sickly sweet than the open sewers of Lamu, was suffocating him. He made an effort to breathe in the ocean air.

—You expected on the strength of one meeting after nine years apart that I would tell Peter our marriage was over? she asked, her voice conveying her incredulity.

—Yes, he said. Basically.

—I can’t believe you’re saying this.

—Why not? he asked. Would you walk away from this now? Just tell me you could go back to a life with Peter and never see me again.

She was silent a long time.

—So, he said. Then.

She put her fingers to her forehead. He saw that she had gone deathly pale.

—Are you all right? he asked.

—I need to lie down.

______

It was the water or the lobster or the drinking or the walk in the heat or the ridiculously painful questions he’d been asking her. She’d grown so pale so quickly that he thought she might faint. She said, Please, and he didn’t know if she meant please stop talking or please help me. He did both. She leaned her weight on him and let him help her inside. But once inside, she lurched away, spoke rapidly to a middle-aged blonde behind a desk, and then disappeared around a corner. Thomas stood in the middle of the small, trim lobby wondering what had just happened.

—Has she been ill? the woman asked. British accent. Polka-dot dress.

Thomas shook his head.

—Pregnant?

The question rattled him. It was a moment before he could respond. I don’t know, he had to say, admitting that he might not know her that well.

—What did she eat?

—Here? Grapefruit and water.

—Well, it’s unlikely to have been the grapefruit. The water is bottled. Anything earlier today?

Thomas thought about their lunch at Petley’s. Chicken,